Linguistics of ASL: "Sign Language Structure and Usage"
Dr. Bill Vicars' Course Study Notes
The text and material to which these notes refer are copyrighted by the authors and or publishers of the "Linguistics of American Sign Language" text.
The organization and some of the wording of these notes are "copyright" by William Vicars. (2007 - present.)
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Dr. Bill's EDS 164
"ASL Structure and Usage" (Linguistics)
Signs:
What is the sign for "CLASSIFIER"? * CL
How can we sign "sentence-CONTEXT"?
What is the sign for PHONEME?
What is the sign for MORPHEME?
What is the sign for CONTRASTIVE?
What is the sign for MINIMAL PAIR?
What is the sign for HANDSHAPE?
What is the sign for MOVEMENT?
What is the sign for palm-ORIENTATION?
What is the sign for LOCATION?If we have two signs and those signs differ by only one phoneme, what can we call those two signs? * A minimal pair.
What is a phoneme? * The smallest contrastive unit in a languageWhat is a minimal pair? * Two signs that differ by only one phoneme
What are the typical phonemes we discuss in ASL Linguistics? * handshape orientation location movement expression
We tend to call these five main types of phonemes or part of signs, "sign __________." *parameters
What is another name for the rules that researchers have generally agreed upon for typical or standard ways to do things? * conventions
Is it possible to for two signs to have two different parameters and be considered a minimal pair? * no
[019] What term means choosing an appropriate English word for signs in order to write them down? * Glossing
List some sample conventions of glossing: * Sample 1: small caps, Sample 2: #, Sample 3: M-A-R-Y, Sample 4: _____t
[019] When glossing, what do we represent with small capital letters preceded by the # symbol? * lexicalized fingerspelled words
[019] What do we call the facial expressions that accompany certain signs? * Nonmanual signals (or nonmanual markers, or NMMs)
[019] What kind of features are indicated on a line above sign glosses? * Nonmanual signals and eye gaze
[019] When glossing, what do we use "small capital letters in English" to represent? * Signs
[019] When glossing, what is represented by dashes between small capital letters? * full fingerspellling
What are some examples of lexicalized fingerspellling? * #WHAT, #BURN, #ALL
Note: The GLOSS label of an ASL sign doesn't equal "English." For example, the sign glossed as "FINE" doesn't mean all of the things that the English word "fine" means. I wouldn't use the sign FINE to sign, "I paid the fine for my ticket." The sign glossed as "GLASSES" also means: Gallaudet University, Thomas Gallaudet, and Moses.
Note: Just because a sign can use a mouth movement, doesn't mean it requires a mouth movement. There are certain signs that do require mouth movements and other signs for which mouth movements are optional. The sign "large" doesn't require the mouth morpheme "CHA" unless you are trying to express the concept of "very" as in "very large" or "huge."
Examples of signs that require a mouth movement: *NOT-YET, PAH