ASL signs for DRINK

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
February 12, 2004

Adam Frost wrote:
> Actually, just repeating a sign twice does not make it a noun.
> Repeating it
> twice with tense movement (~) makes it a noun. I thought that you
> might want
> to know that difference. ;-)

Hello Adam and Everyone!
Yes. I am so glad you told us that. That fits with other research on
this subject. I have seen that, while watching ASL videos too. Not all
double-movement is automatically a noun. And tension is definitely
involved with some nouns. Are you an ASL teacher, Adam? As a Deaf
person, who uses ASL daily, you know these details of course!

I worked with a staff of Deaf people, in the 1990's...the Deaf Action
Committee for SignWriting (the DAC). I noticed that when our Deaf staff
members were signing with each other, without a hearing person in the
conversation....they signed differently to each other than they did to
me, for example. They were signing in true ASL. While I watched, I
noticed that when they referred to a person from another country, that
they did not use the PERSON sign at the end of the sign, like hearing
people do. They instead added tension to the sign, when they were
talking about a person...When I asked them about this, they agreed. And
so we added the Tension Symbol to some of the signs in the dictionary.
I will prepare a diagram for you next message....

Val ;-)