A student asked:
"What is a classifier and how is it different from a handshape?"
Response:
Handshapes are one of the five fundamental building blocks of a sign:
Handshape, movement, location, orientation, and nonmanual markers. (Nonmanual
markers include those aspects of body language that do not involve the hands
such as shoulder movements, head tilts, and facial expressions.) The handshape is literally the shape in which we form our hand during the
production of a sign.
The movement or shape of certain signs can be modified in such a way as to
include information about a referent's type, size, shape, movement, or
extent. Those signs which have this ability are "classifiers."
It might be more accurate to call them "potential classifiers" since whether
or not these "potential classifiers" become actual classifiers depends on
how they are used in context.____________________________________________
Discussion:
DrVicars: What is a classifier? What do you think Art?
Art: I think you caught me not doing today's homework.
DrVicars: Heh, sorry, for putting you on the spot.
Heather: It's the form of the fingers or hands to indicate a type of sign. Such
as... if you want to sign a cup or a plate, you form either a small circle
with the hands, or you form a larger circle with the hands.
Tigie: Like long narrow things and round flat things?
Daniel: Signs that represent classes of objects such as land or
water vehicles as a group.
DrVicars: Those are some great answers, I think we are getting there.
:)
Now give me another example... [time passes] ...Anyone feel free...
Sandy: Like using the index finger to show long skinny things?
DrVicars: Good, right. Let me explain it a bit more for you. If I want to
show a person (we will call him "Fred") walking and I have established him
on my right I can take my
right index finger and move it to the left to represent "Fred"
walking across the room (or wherever). The index finger is (in this
instance) being used as a classifier. I can also inflect the sign in
various ways (speed, distance, movement path, non-manual markers, etc). If I
add a non-manual marker such as a facial expression it influences the
meaning of my classifier. For example, If I do the CL:1-"walk across the
room" sign with a smile It means Fred is happily walking across the room.
If I do it quickly It means Fred is hustling etc. [Changing how you do a
sign is what you would call "inflecting" the sign
for meaning.]
Sandy: What I didn't understand in looking at this was - isn't it overly
broad? Is it really
understood?
DrVicars: Think of classifiers as a type of pronoun.
You have to identify your pronoun before you can use it. Also you have to
use it in context. I cant just start a conversation with you by signing,
"HE WALK." I have to set up
some sort of situation or context, then I spell F-R-E-D, and then point to
the right then form the INDEX-finger-classifier (or "Classifier 1"
also shown as CL:1) and move it to the left.
Tigie: How do you know that classifier "F" isn't part of a
fingerspelled or initialized word
instead of representing a small round thing?
DrVicars: Great question. The answer is context. It is the same way you
know the letter O and the number 0 are different. It depends where they show
up.
DrVicars: I don't expect you all to be experts at classifiers, just want
you to know they exist.
An example on that "F" concept: If I sign "I BUY NEW
SHIRT" then I touch an F on my chest and throw it off suddenly it could
mean: "and the button popped off." The "F" classifier
acquired the meaning of "button" because of the context (I was
talking about "shirts" and placement on my chest).
Tigie: Would everyone understand that a button popped off and not for
instance a bottle cap?
DrVicars: Remember this concept: "Show, don't tell." It is much
faster to create an imaginary person or object then show what happens to it
or him--than to describe every item in the situation. In the case of the
bottle cap I would have had to indicate a bottle of some kind before using
an f classifier. The only possible meaning for the classifier in the shirt example would be
a button, because that was the context. People normally don't
wear a row of bottle-caps down the front of their shirts.
Sandy: So, classifiers are used later on in the "sentence,"--it
makes more sense now.
Heather: Why would you use the "F" sign to show a button popped
off? Wouldn't you use a "B?"
DrVicars: Because the shape of the fingerspelled letter "F" has a round hole representing the
shape of a button. Remember ASL is not linking to English it is linking to a
concept.
Heather: Thanks, that makes perfect sense.
Some of the more popular classifiers:
CL:1 Things that are (relatively) long and skinny. A pencil,
a stick, a person.
CL:A an object in a certain location. A house, a lamp.
CL:3- vehicles, [motorcycle, park a car, row of cars, accident, garage]
CL:4-[CURTAIN]
CL:5-[scads of]
CL:B- flat things[roof, flat, wall]
CL:C-[thick things, round pole-like things]
CL:C-(index and thumb) pepperoni, cookies, campaign buttons
CL:F
CL:G- thin things (or degree of thinness)
CL:L(bent)-[large, big-headed/egoistic/conceited, check, card, square]
CL:L-[check, card, square]
CL:V- legs, a person walking-(upside-down
V), two people walking, [stand, walk-to, lay down, toss-and-turn, dive, jump, skate board, scooter, get up]
CL:V (bent fingers) = a small animal, or a larger animal sitting.