a Linguistics of ASL question -- grammar

[Adam Frost]

I wasn't planning on saying anything on the matter, but as a native signer the sentence RECENTLY, EAT-FINISH DADDY to follow a VS structure feels wrong. The only way I can see DADDY being a subject in this sentence is if it were a rhetorical statement. I don't know if that would mean it's still a VS structure with that way of signing, but I don't think it would be. 

Adam

On Mar 6, 2011, at 6:22 AM, "Dan Parvaz" <dparvaz at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>>    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.
>