question for the way to express 'made'

Sun Jan 10 16:36:33 UTC 2010

I fundamentally disagree ... with those who say that signed languages
are not languages. Stokoe (we can forgiving him his bizarre notation)
was the first to demonstrate that what we use are most definitely
languages. But the presecriptive grammarians wil try to argue that
because some signed languages don't have a tense system then those are
not real languages; neglecting of course that English does not have a
true future tense. The example of Chinese not having what these
grammarians demand as a tense is a good counter-example to their
nonsense; if the language of the majority of people on the planet
doesn't have a tense system then just maybe those languages that do
are the odd ball languages.

On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 11:56 PM, Cherie Wren <cwterp at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Sorry I am an interpreter, not a linguist.  I have to constantly defend
> against people who say ASL isn't a real language because it doesn't
> have______;  when ASL just handles that particular ___ differently than
> English.  Or "ASL doesn't have a word for ___"    etc.  In Linguist-Speak,
> maybe ASL and BSL don't "have tense" but what I mean is ASL does
> differentiate between past, present and future, it just does not mark each
> individual verb in the entire discourse like English does.  I don't know the
> formal linguist definition for tense, or requirements for 'having' tense,
> but ASL does manage to convey past, present, future, '-ing', '-ed' etc.
>
> cherie
> ________________________________
> From: Trevor Jenkins <bslwannabe at gmail.com>
> To: SignWriting List <sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
> Sent: Sat, January 9, 2010 3:10:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [sw-l] question for the way to express 'made'
>
> Um, according to Sutton-Spence and Woll in their "Linguistics of BSL"
> the language does *not* have tense. In the same way that Chinese does
> not have tense. There are time-markers to denote a change of time but
> that is not the same as grammatical tense where the verb-lexeme is
> altered for moment of occurence. Now as someone performing
> sign-to-voice i would use the time-markers amongst the signs and then
> change the spoken verbs according; or with voice-to-sign I would hear
> the spoken verbs and insert a time marker. Notice that each spoken
> verb has to be changed but only one signed time-marker is required.
>
> On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 5:36 PM, Cherie Wren <cwterp at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> So, based on what you say, BSL expresses tense the same way as ASL.  It
>> DOES
>> have tense, it just doesn't add it to every verb, like English does.
>>
>> Cherie
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
>> To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
>> Sent: Fri, January 8, 2010 7:18:18 AM
>> Subject: Re: [sw-l] question for the way to express 'made'
>>
>> Cherie,
>>
>> As I mentioned, BSL doesn't have tense. In telling a story, you simply
>> state a time (eg LAST-WEEK or IN-THE-PAST or TOMORROW), then that time
>> applies to everything you sign until you state new time.
>>
>> BSL does have a lot of aspect, though, ie how an action is carried out.
>> For example, completed, protracted, interrupted and so on.
>>
>> Sandy
>>
>> On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 03:43 -0800, Cherie Wren wrote:
>>> In ASL the tense is one of the first things stated in a story.  Then
>>> tense is not restated until it changes.  So if Lourdes set up that the
>>> story happened in the past at the beginning of the story; "Once upon a
>>> time" or the equivalent, then EVERY verb from then until it changed IF
>>> it changed would look like present tense on the surface, but that is
>>> only because the tense has already been established.  English has to
>>> state the tense with every flippin' verb.  ASL does not.  (Sorry,
>>> can't comment about BSL ::smile::)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________________________________
>>> From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
>>> To: SignWriting List <sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
>>> Sent: Fri, January 8, 2010 3:59:56 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [sw-l] question for the way to express 'made'
>>>
>>> I'd agree with Trevor's grammar here:
>>>
>>> PAST FOOD COOK (hold with aspect) FINISHED.
>>>
>>> "PAST" is the time marker (there's no actual tense in BSL) and
>>> generally
>>> comes in the narrative before the things that happen at that time
>>>
>>> "FINISHED" (or "BEEN") is the perfective aspect, and follows the verb
>>> (though not all aspect is handled this way).
>>>
>>> But Shane's:
>>>
>>> FOOD COOK PAST
>>>
>>> isn't wrong, it just needs support from non-manual features, as he
>>> points out. To me it gives a different emphasis, more on WHEN the food
>>> was cooked, rather than the actual cooking.
>>>
>>> Does anyone perceive any semantic difference between:
>>>
>>> FOOD COOK FINISHED
>>>
>>> and:
>>>
>>> FOOD COOK BEEN
>>>
>>> in BSL? You'd think that "FINISHED" would have more of an achievement
>>> associated with it but it seems to me that this connotation is lost in
>>> using it as a perfective.
>>>
>>> I would love to write some grammar rules for SignWriting BSL: that
>>> sort
>>> of thing would help people to write with more confidence, I think, but
>>> I
>>> don't really feel qualified.
>>>
>>> Sandy
>>>
>>> On Thu, 2010-01-07 at 22:20 +0000, Trevor Jenkins wrote:
>>> > Hi Shane,
>>> >
>>> > Interesting. I'd put that BSL time marker earlier. Something like
>>> >
>>> > PAST FOOD COOK (hold with aspect) FINISHED.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Shane Gilchrist
>>> > <shane.gilchrist.oheorpa at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > > Dear Gan,
>>> > >
>>> > > we dont really have past tenses in the same sense as the English
>>> > > language - for instance, in BSL (using glosses - sorry!)
>>> > >
>>> > > I made food:
>>> > >
>>> > > - FOOD COOK^nodding
>>> > > - FOOD COOK PAST
>>> > > - FOOD COOK FINISHED!
>>> > >
>>> > > non-manual features are very important here.
>>> > >
>>> > > Shane
>>> > >
>>> > >
>>> > > 2010/1/6 Gan  Lu <glu at uclan.ac.uk>:
>>> > >> Hi Charles;
>>> > >>
>>> > >>  Thanks for the comment. So do you reckon the past tense is
>>> necessary here? And if we use "create". should it be 'Created' then?
>>> > >>
>>> > >>  Thanks
>>> > >>  Gan
>>> > >>
>>> > >>>>> "Charles Butler" <chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com> 06/01/10 1:54 PM
>>> >>>
>>> > >> Hmm.  In context the sign, I would think would be either "make"
>>> or "create".  The tense is carried by the situation.
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >> create
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >> ________________________________
>>> > >> From: Gan Lu <glu at uclan.ac.uk>
>>> > >> To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
>>> > >> Sent: Wed, January 6, 2010 8:05:15 AM
>>> > >> Subject: [sw-l] question for the way to express 'made'
>>> > >>
>>> > >> Dear Adam and Valerie;
>>> > >>
>>> > >>  I'm implementing the system now. While I have a question:
>>> > >>
>>> > >>    why can't we use an ASL gesture to express the meaning of
>>> 'made' on the first page of the 'Frosty the Snow Man', other than
>>> using the FingerSpellings to sign these four letters respectively?
>>> > >>
>>> > >>    I suppose the reason is because the word 'made' is a past
>>> tense, and there is no ASL for it.
>>> > >>
>>> > >>  The reason I'm asking is my intention is to implement the first
>>> page as a 4-by-4 output pattern, which are 16 sign-boxes in total
>>> includes those punctuations. So I'm looking for a way to squeeze the
>>> word 'made' into a box.
>>> > >>
>>> > >>  Thanks
>>> > >> Gan
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >> ____________________________________________
>>> > >>
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>>> > >>
>>> > >>
>>> > >>
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>>> > >>
>>> > >
>>> > >
>>> > >
>>> > >
>>> > > ____________________________________________
>>> > >
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>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Regards, Trevor.
>
> <>< Re: deemed!
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Regards, Trevor.

<>< Re: deemed!

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