Nominal vs Cardinal numbers in ASL

Mon Feb 9 02:07:46 UTC 2009

SignWriting List
February 8, 2009

This is great information, Cherie. Just what I wanted and needed to  
know...I always instinctively felt that the ASL page numbers needed to  
have the palm out away from the chest in the first five numbers, just  
as Adam suggested too, but because I got corrected by an ASL signer,  
who assumed that i didn't realize that the numbers are supposed to  
have the palm to the chest, I started to worry that I just didn't  
know...so your information below would be new to a lot of  
people...even native ASL signers...and part of the reason is because  
page numbers in written ASL is such a new idea that most people never  
really thought about it before...so I will keep the palm out...and I  
will keep your information to refer to...

And Adam, yes, it does seem that Cherie is saying that the terminology  
is different than yours in your ASL definitions in the ASL Dictionary  
Puddle, so maybe you can talk about the different terms...just look up  
"one" or "1" in the ASL Dictionary Puddle to see Adam's definitions...

Thanks once again...

Val ;-)

-------------

On Feb 8, 2009, at 5:33 PM, Cherie Wren wrote:

> The ASL number system is actually MUCH more complicated than  
> English, and has more options than just nominal and cardinal.  What  
> you are talking about, numbers 1-5 turned palm in to body, are  
> actually quantifiers... numbers as adjectives.  Nominals, numbers as  
> nouns, look differently depending on the type of noun.  A social  
> security number and a 10 digit phone number have specific patterns  
> in ASL that are different than the patterns of English.  Numbers in  
> addresses are different:"  instead of English 4-6-7-5 (four six  
> seven five) for the street number 4675, in ASL it would be 46-75  
> (forty six- seventy five).
>
> Money numbers is a whole different set, so your 2 cents, Adam, is  
> neither cardinal nor nominal.  While technically I guess it would be  
> nominal, in practical use it is a "unique system".  We haven't even  
> thrown ordinal numbers into the mix, and ASL does those in several  
> different ways too, depending on what you are talking about.  When I  
> teach numbers, I start with cardinal, with nominal as a subset of  
> cardinal, then all the "unique systems" such as money, quantifiers,  
> and classifier numbers (a 42 on a football jersey), then ordinal  
> systems last.
>
> I vote for page numbers to be simple palm out from the body...   
> cardinal.  Now we are tied again.  Numbers palm in to the body for  
> 1-5, quantifiers, are not appropriate for page numbers, in my opinion.
>
> cherie, giving about $2 worth, more than you want, I know.  (make  
> sure you twist the two, now-- that is one of the "unique  
> systems")  ::grin::
>
> From: Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org>
> To: SignWriting List <sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, February 8, 2009 3:43:28 PM
> Subject: Re: [sw-l] Nominal vs Cardinal numbers in ASL
>
> SignWriting List
> February 8, 2009
>
> Thank you, Adam, for this really good explanation of the  
> problem...and for your vote for nominal. That has always been my  
> feeling too...
>
> However, around four months ago I had a long discussion with another  
> native ASL signer about this and that person voted for the  
> cardinal...so if you count my vote, then we have one cardinal and  
> two nominal, but i am not native or Deaf...so we need more opinions,  
> or maybe test readers and ask them to search for pages in the book  
> only using ASL numbers to see which works best for them finding the  
> pages fast...
>
> Any others have opinions on nominal or cardinal page numbers in ASL?
>
> Val ;-)
>
> -----------
>
>
>
> On Feb 8, 2009, at 12:01 PM, Adam Frost wrote:
>
> > A very fine line here because page numbers are counted pages which  
> number the page with a label. They are often used as both  
> interchangeably mostly because English doesn't distinguish between  
> both and most people don't know the difference. When thinking about  
> how I usually refer to pages, I usually use the cardinal form as I  
> am basically saying "turn 5 pages from the beginning" verses "turn  
> to page 5" which would use the nominal form. However, I think that  
> we are actually labeling the page as "Page 5" so I think that in  
> this case it should be nominals that are used. I hope that makes  
> sense. Anyway, that is my 2 cents worth. (Hmm... would that 2 be  
> cardinal or nominal? Ha!) ;-)
> >
> > Adam
> >
> > On Feb 8, 2009, at 11:40 AM, SignWriting wrote:
> >
> >> SignWriting List
> >> February 8, 2009
> >>
> >> Hi SW Listers!
> >> I need your advice. Most ASL numbers are the same whether they  
> are nominal or cardinal, but there are five that are  
> different....the first five numbers are cardinal inside a sentence,  
> but nominal when telling people your phone number, your apartment  
> number etc...I believe that is correct anyway ;-))
> >>
> >> In other words, the cardinal is part of meaning in a sentence,  
> but the nominal is like a "label"...like stating your Social  
> Security Number (a long number that represents a person in the  
> US)...if it has a lot of "ones"...like 111-897-1102...or something  
> like that...I don't believe the palm turns towards the chest when  
> stating your Social Security Number, does it?
> >>
> >> So when reading tiny tiny page numbers at the bottom of pages in  
> a 500 page SignWriting book, should the page numbers be nominal or  
> cardinal? I have always felt that the page numbers were like  
> "labels" for finding a page quickly...but others have disagreed with  
> me...meanwhile most people do not have a lot of experience reading  
> large books in SignWriting yet, including myself, so we all are  
> guessing a bit... It may really be a matter of all of us getting  
> used to this, and figuring out, by testing readers, who can find  
> page 1 faster...when it is nominal or cardinal? smile...
> >>
> >> I am updating our old Goldilocks documents with the symbols of  
> the ISWA and while I am doing that update anyway, I wondered about  
> the page numbers...They were nominal in the old documents.
> >>
> >> Should page numbers be nominal or cardinal? Please see attached...
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> <Nominal-Cardinal.png>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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