a Linguistics of ASL question -- grammar

[Dan Parvaz]

>     topic_____
>     RECENTLY, EAT-FINISH DADDY.

I have no "instincts", but years of observation have me thinking that if the above 
is an example of a VS structure, then it is infelicitious. It is possible to construe 
it as such, to find a context in which it can be so, but I'll bet the temptation 
would be to interpret that as "Not that long ago, I ate my father." That this 
sentence might be as likely, or more so, than the VS interpretation should say 
something about the former interpretation's likelihood. Or about me, but that's a 
little more disturbing.

<soapbox>
This is one more reason why we need a good ASL corpus, preferably including 
spontaneous dialogue and not simply those utterances we wheedle out of our 
consultants. Then we may have some idea of the distribution of these 
constructions.
</soapbox> 

-Dan.