Agreement with SAME

[Mike Morgan]

Indian Sign Language (aka Indian  / or at least Delhi & Bombay
dialects of Indo-Pakistani Sign Language???) have separate words for
SAME and for SIMILAR, but both work much like Japanese Sign Language,
by being two handed signs, with the LOCATION of each hand "agreeing"
with the argument location.
Handshape for SAME is V V
Handshape for SIMILAR is G G

(and, Nepali Sign Language, which has been claimed by some to be of
the same language family, or maybe even a dialect of the same language
as I(P)SL, has a completely different sign, which CANNOT show
agreement.

HOWEVER, if we were to have  a context, such as "same age" usign a
sign which might be translated as SAME-LEVEL, then we DO have
agreement in NSL as well... but not with the more general sign SAME...
and coincidentally is the "same sign" agreeing in the same way as
JSL/NS sign for same.)

On 4/5/12, Mark A. Mandel <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Dear Victoria,
>
> Just to make it explicit, then, is it the case that
>
>   - MSL SAME, 2-handed version, does not allow the locations or orientations
> of the hands to index the referents ?
>
>   - AdaSL SAME, the lateral path movement does not index the referents ?
>
> --
> Mark A. Mandel
> Linguistic Data Consortium
> University of Pennsylvania
>
>
>
> On 12.04.05, at 5:52 AM, Nyst, V.A.S. wrote:
>
>> Dear Itamar,
>> As far as I know it is not possible to modify the sign meaning 'same'
>> for agreement in the sign languages I am working on, i.e. Adamorobe SL
>> (Ghana) and Malian SL as used in Bamako.
>> MSL: SAME is made with one or two V hands closing to an H hand in space
>> AdaSL SAME: upright V hand repeates a short lateral path movement +
>> [fff] on the mouth
>> Greetings,
>> Victoria
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Date:    Wed, 4 Apr 2012 22:51:22 -0400
>> From:    Itamar Kastner <itamar at NYU.EDU>
>> Subject: Agreement with SAME
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I was wondering whether anyone knew of signed languages in which the
>> signs for SAME, SIMILAR or IDENTICAL can mark agreement with the
>> elements they are equating, as ASL SAME does.
>>
>> For those unfamiliar with it, in ASL a Y handshape can move between two
>> indices in space to indicate that their referents are similar, a-SAME-b
>> (especially when one of them is the signer, 1-SAME-2, in a construction
>> meaning ME-TOO or SAME-HERE); or, alternatively, the sign can move to a
>> lesser degree in neutral space without agreeing with any object, in
>> similar fashion to a 'plain verb'.
>>
>> I have not been able to find anything about this in the literature and
>> I'd be curious to know if a similar pattern exists in other languages.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Itamar
>>
>> --
>> phd student, nyu linguistics
>> https://files.nyu.edu/ik747/public
>
>


-- 
mwm || *U* C > || mike || мика  || माईक || マイク || மாய்க் (aka Dr Michael W
Morgan)
sign language linguist / linguistic typologist at large
semi-official academic adviser to "Nepal Sign Language Training and
Research Centre" project
NFDN, Kathmandu, Nepal