a Linguistics of ASL question -- grammar

[ben.karlin@yahoo.com]

If asked the question EAT-FINISH WHO? wouldn't EAT-FINISH JOHN be a  
grammatical response?  Or in conversation especially with children a series  
like EAT-FINISH MOMMY. EAT-FINISH DADDY. EAT-FINISH JOHN. could this not  
also be allowed? 
   That kind of stereotypical structure is not unheard of with children or  
the elderly.  It also shows up in stories.

This is my sense of how things work. Have I got it wrong?

Ben Karlin
St Louis, MO

-----Original message-----
From: Albert Bickford <albert_bickford at SIL.ORG>
To: SLLING-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
Sent: Fri, Mar 4, 2011 20:15:26 GMT+00:00
Subject: Re: a Linguistics of ASL question -- grammar

Another way to think about the situation is that the claim that VS order 
is impossible in intransitive clauses in ASL refers specifically to full 
(not pronominal) subjects.  So, *EAT-FINISH JOHN would be claimed to be 
bad.  It is commonly the case that pronouns in languages (especially 
unstressed pronouns) can show up in places where nouns cannot, so claims 
about word order possibilities have to make clear whether they are 
talking about the possible positions of full NPs or also pronouns.

Albert Bickford
SIL International (Mexico program and Signed Language Leadership Team)
albert_bickford at sil.org


On 2011/03/04 12:37 PM, Grushkin, Donald A wrote:
> Thanks for the response, Susan.
>
> If I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that in "EAT-FINISH",  
the subject (me) is implied or "understood", so the PRO.1 is a copy of the  
implied subject?
> ________________________________________
> From: linguists interested in signed languages  
[SLLING-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU] On Behalf Of Fischer Susan  
[susan.fischer at RIT.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 10:13 AM
> To: SLLING-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
> Subject: Re: a Linguistics of ASL question -- grammar
>
> Sentences like that could be analyzed as an example of subject pronoun  
copy (discussed by Padden), since first person subject is often zero, and as  
far as I can tell, has no relation to the presence of FINISH.   It would be  
restricted to unstressed pronouns (you couldn't substitute MYSELF for IX1,  
for example).  I actually ta

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