a Linguistics of ASL question -- grammar

[Fischer Susan]

Yes, Don, I meant an implicit first-person subject.  Regarding EAT-FINISH JOHN, that could be analyzed as either topicalization of EAT-FINISH or focus movement of JOHN (à la Petronio).
Susan D. Fischer
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On Mar 4, 2011, at 12:34 PM, ben.karlin at yahoo.com wrote:

> 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 talked about a broader category of post-sentential tags in my very old paper on word order in ASL (Sign language and linguistic universals, recently reprinted in SLL), though I didn't call them that.  They have to be unstressed.  Note also that a language like Japanese, which is strictly verb-final and more generally head-final, permits postposed topics (without the topic marker wa) under the same circumstances, e.g.,
>> 
>> baka    da nee,      watasi  (falling intonation, low stress)
>> dumb   is  right?   me
>> I'm sure dumb, aren't I.
>> 
>> SDF
>> 
>> Susan D. Fischer
>> Susan.Fischer at rit.edu<mailto:Susan.Fischer at rit.edu>
>> 
>> Center for Research on Language
>> UCSD
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Mar 4, 2011, at 9:39 AM, Grushkin, Donald A wrote:
>> 
>> Teaching ASL Linguistics again.  In Linguistics of ASL (textbook by Valli, Lucas & Mulrooney), it says that in simple sentences with plain intransitive verbs, it is not possible to use VS (Verb Subject) structure.  A couple of students pointed out that one can sign EAT-FINISH PRO.1, or RUN-FINISH PRO.1.  On the face of it, these do seem to be Verb Subject structures.  I hypothesized that the completive FINISH might be changing the structure of the sentence so the rule is not violated.  However, I'd like to check with you, the real linguistics experts on this.
>> 
>> --Don Grushkin
>> 
>> 
> 

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