Directional Verbs / signed vs. spoken languages

[Richard J Senghas]

But even when considering the pronunciations of 'boy' in English with  
some particular ASL utterance, depending on what your area of  
linguistic focus may be, it may still be worth comparing such  
seemingly disparate phenomena.

Consider someone who may be trying to understand the nature of  
phonological assimilation, and what aspects of assimilation may be  
articulator-dependent, and what aspects of assimilation are dependent  
on other factors (e.g., various sorts of cognition, perception, etc.,  
perhaps, even ideologies of articulation with respect to standardized  
performance).  In this case, there are fruitful possibilities for  
comparison.

Responding to the terminological suggestion regarding 'equivalent'  
vs. 'comparable': again, the issue is what are we (as linguists)  
trying to do and say?  At times it makes sense to compare very  
different phenomena to highlight phenomena that might not otherwise  
be apparent.  We compare similar and dissimilar sounds, we even  
compare the levels of linguistic analysis (phonological,  
morphological, syntactic, pragmatic) to see what those different  
analytic levels may contribute to understanding an utterance or the  
'nature of language' as a complex system of systems.

So long as we are mindful about when we are talking about things as  
potentially analogous, rather than equivalent, or so long as we are  
mindful about the nature of the comparisons, for example,  
functionally equivalent with regard to X rather than perceptually  
similar/distinct with regard to this surface-form manifestation, then  
I think we'll do fine.  Some comparisons do have the potential to  
distract or allow us to conflate or misrepresent phenomena, but  
careful comparison is the heart of science.  Creative comparisons  
open up new avenues of inquiry, if framed usefully.

Interesting (and fun) to see so much traffic on list over the last  
few days....

-RJS

======================================================================
Richard J. Senghas, Professor            | Sonoma State University
Anthropology/Linguistics                 | 1801 East Cotati Avenue
Coordinator, Linguistics Program         | Rohnert Park, CA 94928-3609
Richard.Senghas[at]sonoma.edu            | 707-664-3920 (fax)


On 28 Mar 2009, , at 8:31 AM, S Walker wrote:

> On Mar 28, 2009, at 9:59 AM, Patricia Raswant wrote:
>
>> ...how is it possible to compare an aural language to a visual
>> language?
>
> Ok, I think I understand your question.  Suppose we are looking at
> how to pronounce, say, the word, "boy" in spoken English vs. ASL.
> If we try to say, "Well, the lips and tongue and vocal cords do  
> this..."
> and then we say, "Well, the hand and fingers and movement do this..."
> then YES, comparing those two (simplistic!!) events are sort of  
> pointless.

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