American Sign Language Linguistics:
Grouping Signs by Their Parameters
Also See "linguistics (1)"
Also See "linguistics (2)"

Kerry Kurtzman
10/26/04

Grouping Signs by Their Parameters

 An Inventory of Nuances 

     In my quest to learn approximately 500 signs within a five week period, it occurred to me that when I linked signs according to their similarities, I was able to retain/recall the signs more easily.  American Sign Language (ASL) is not just a gestural language, but a complex, visual-spatial language (Nakamura, 2002).  In fact, each sign has four general characteristics or parameters: 1) handshape; 2) orientation (palm); 3) location; and 4) movement (Note: a possible 5^th parameter could be facial expressions).  Therefore, creating visual links has helped me to categorize the signs and store them more efficiently into my memory.  Table 1 lists 59 signs (29 cognates) which differ in only one or two parameters:

Table 1

Common:       Location     Orientation      Movement (differ in hand-   shape)	Common:        Handshape          Location        Orientation (differ in movement)	Common:      Handshape      Orientation      Movement (differ in location )	Common:       Orientation       Handshape      (differ in location, move-       Ment)	Common:         Handshape           Location         Orientation          Movement
Brave/Strong ( handshape    modified) Cafeteria/ Bachelor/ Restaurant	Dance/Read       Again/Often       Beer/Brown        Fish/Blue   Computer/Church       Tired/Have      Almost/Easy       Other/Ten    French Fries/"99"     Keep/"Type of"       More/Lost    Surprise/Wake-up (differ in facial expression)     Strike match/Cost      Think/Cents      Work/Habit Pea Brain/Government         (coincidence?)	Mother/Father Grandmother/ Grandfather	School/Paper   Leave/And Taste/Prefer	Interesting/Like     Please/Enjoy    (differ in # of hands)       Cute/Sugar (differ in facial express-   ion) Apply(run for)/         Shirt  Gold/California Glasses/Gallaudet   During/Parallel         Ugly/Dry    (facial expression)

      Notice that I did not include noun/verb pairs that are similar/related in meaning (e.g.: "sit/chair", "drive/car"), or words of similar meanings with initialized differences (e.g.: "math/algebra/geometry").  Right or wrong, intentional or not, I believe that I see the "shape" of words/thoughts instead of individual signs. 

References

Nakamura, Karen. (2002, March 28)  Sign Language Linguistics.  About American Sign Language.  Deaf Resource Library.  Retrieved 26, Oct. 2004 <http://www.deaflibrary.org/asl.html>.