[sw-l] Underlining proper names in vertical columns...

[Stuart Thiessen]

I think we have to distinguish between what is happening in the
language itself (on the phonological or morphological levels) and how
we actually write it on paper.  For example, in English, the sentence
"We will go see the Washington Monument." and "We will go see the
washington monument." are pronounced exactly the same.  There is no
difference on a phonological or morphological level.  There is a
difference in my transcription based on the rules of writing English.
The first one is written correctly, but the second only violates
writing system rules. It seems that many writing systems have a way of
distinguishing names. Even the Shavian system which is an alternative
alphabet for writing English has a "namer dot" that precedes the name
(instead of capital letters) to indicate a proper name.

As others have already noted, in ASL, we often fingerspell a proper
name before indicating the sign for it (particularly in introductions
or where a new name sign is being introduced). I haven't analyzed to
see if we really use the topic marker or not when we do that. Perhaps
others on the list are familiar with that in ASL. For languages which
do not use fingerspelling, there may be a different approach to
indicating the name.

If the language is not using topic markers at that point, it doesn't
make sense to introduce those markers simply to mark a transcription
event (noting the proper name). This is usually a writing systems
issue, not a grammatical, morphological, or phonological issue.  So we
shouldn't apply those kinds of solutions to the question.

Thanks,

Stuart

On Jun 5, 2005, at 5:25, Kasterlinden Bilinguaal wrote:

> Hello List,
>
> I think the example where the name is underlined is confusing. I think
> my students will misunderstand it. They will think it's a punctuation
> mark.
>
> What about using 'topic', where the signers head is tilted back, and
> the eyebrows are pulled up. (example 2)
>
> -a topic is used to mark the subject of the conversation and to check
> if the other person knows anything about this subject.
>
> <mijn.png> <dot_a.png>
> <space_v.png>
> <mama_4.png> <dot_a.png>
> <space_v.png>
> <topicmijn.png> <dot_a.png>
> <space_v.png>
> <topicmama.png>
>
> Of course this is not to be used for every pronoun, but a thing to
> consider ;)
>
> Greetings Kathleen
>
>
>
> >From: "Valerie Sutton" <sutton at signwriting.org>
> >Reply-To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> >To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> >Subject: Re: [sw-l] Underlining proper names in vertical columns...
> >Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 20:47:49 -0700
> >
> >SignWriting List
> >June 2, 2005
> >
> >Which version to you prefer? I hope we get lots of answers from  
> >everyone...Your feedback is welcome!
> >
> >
> >
> ><< Goldilocks.jpg >>
>
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