left, right and together arrows

Charles Butler chazzer3332000 at YAHOO.COM
Thu Mar 16 02:42:42 UTC 2006


Hello, everyone,
   
  I would, for myself, sometimes write "possible" with one arrow, as shorthand, but only if I was trying to speed write.  The feel for "possible" is two-handed.  The feel for "basketball" is one arrow.  There really is a definite "feel" for signs that are one handed and two handed, and there is no "hard and fixed" rule.  I'd make it a VARIANT, but not the primary, kind of like, "thru" and "through" in English.  The first is quick, but the second is formally "correct.  There are "formal" ways to write and "variant" ways to write but we need to teach the "preferred" spelling.
   
  Charles
  

Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> wrote:
  SignWriting List
March 15, 2006

> Thank you for your comment. Back to Charles' comment, that we can use
> possible sign with general arrow since both hands in same shape 
> moves at
> the same direction. This shows simplify and less symbols to read. 
> This
> is my thoughts.

Smile!

I did not read Charles' comment to mean that thousands of signs would 
have to be re-written! Because that is what that means...

You are talking about changing the meaning of the General Arrow to 
mean Parallel Paths...at the moment it is defined as Overlapping 
Paths...that is totally different

A simplified way of teaching the concept of Overlapping Paths, was to 
say that the two hands must contact each other and move 
together....that is the General Arrow...when the right is on top of 
the left....

Would you really write the sign for POSSIBLE, Charles, with a general 
arrow? That would mean that all the signs that have the right and 
left hands moving at the same time, would have to be changed...It 
would be like a simultaneous line...the general arrow would change 
its definition in a major way...

Here is how it is defined at this time, in all the textbooks on 
SignWriting in the world:

Right path...dark arrowhead
Left path...white arrowhead
Overlapping paths...general arrow

There are some exceptions, but the sign for POSSIBLE, or Parallel 
Paths, has not been one of them...smile...

Anyway, at least I have told you how it is taught at the moment, and 
I will try to create some better lessons!

Keep writing, Philippe...that is what matters the most...and as we 
write more and more full sentences, we learn through experience what 
is really needed...I think in dictionaries the entries are kind of 
dry...if you know what I mean...they are not a part of a sentence and 
so they do not have the feeling that comes into writing full 
sentences in ASL...but I personally have found that writing ASL 
sentences needs the right and left clearly defined...

Great to talk with you!!

Val ;-)


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