general arrowhead

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
March 11, 2006

Ingvild Roald in Norway wrote:
> So I could teach, in books or otherwise, that 'the general rule is  
> tat we
> use the common / together / general arrowhead when the two hands are
> painting the same path. As exceptions, it may also be used for certain
> classifier signs (when the feeling is that the two hands are holding
> something between them, and this 'thing' is what really moves), or  
> when
> the sign would otherwise be too cluttered and hard to read'.

Ingvild -
I will try to do a new eLesson now, about the Right, Left and  
Overlapping Paths (right, left and general arrows)...

I think the new term Overlapping, rather than SAME path, is more  
accurate, although perhaps harder to understand for beginners...but  
maybe in a visual eLesson I can succeed in explaining it better...So  
I will announce the new posting when it is ready...

Regarding the classifier issue...I just won't mention that exception,  
since I am not sure if it relates only to classifiers in northern  
Europe and the US, or perhaps linguists might find that other signed  
languages are different - I am not a linguist so I don't know...and  
frankly I don't think most linguists know every signed language in  
the world!

So I am going to teach the arrows based on Movement Writing paths,  
and leave the exceptions to you for writing Norwegian Sign  
Language...smile...If others start writing this way too, then we can  
re-visit the issue later...

I know you are writing a textbook in Norwegian and Norwegian Sign  
Language, on SignWriting now, so this information is important to  
you...I am very excited about your new book!


Val ;-)


Valerie Sutton
Sutton at SignWriting.org

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