ASL Grammar - Is this correct?

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
January 30, 2006

Ingvild Roald wrote:
> Hmm .. I wrote the equivalent question in Norwegian SL, and was  
> told by
> deaf signers that actually, for this this particular question, the
> eyebrows up is better, because it looks more friendly.  So I guess  
> things
> differ a bit among language communities?? Ingvild

Hello Ingvild and Adam!
Thanks for your messages on grammar. I believe that facial  
expressions, related to grammar, are different in different signed  
languages...so it is not surprising that there are differences in  
Norwegian Sign Language compared to ASL...

But having said that, it also could be that the person who told you  
this, Ingvild, had never written Norwegian Sign Language, and so had  
not analyzed the possible nuances, depending on the structure of a  
sentence...

In ASL, the eyebrows change depending on the situation...so grammar  
writing rules have to be established when we are writing Sign- 
Sentences...

These kind of standardizations will come when more people write  
SignWriting sentences that are not dependent on word-glosses... when  
people compose directly in the movements of signed languages, then  
the grammar-writing improves...

So the future is great, because Steve is working on a new program for  
that very purpose!

Ingvild, while I have you online...have you seen these seven pages of  
lessons I posted this weekend?...

Lessons in Using SignPuddle with SignBank
http://www.SignBank.org/help

it is number 1 on that page...

Until I hear from someone, that they were able to follow these  
lessons and open in Editor mode, I cannot continue with the  
Lessons...so tell me when you have gotten that far...

Any feedback on the lessons is greatly appreciated!

Hugs -

Val ;-)


Valerie Sutton
Sutton at SignWriting.org

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