From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun Dec 03 13:37:05 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:37:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Gqz0s-0002Vd-HY for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:36:42 -0800 Received: from ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com ([205.158.62.199]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Gqz0n-0002VN-I3 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:36:42 -0800 Received: by ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com (Postfix, from userid 1001) id A9A922F91C; Sun, 3 Dec 2006 21:36:35 +0000 (GMT) Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" MIME-Version: 1.0 From: "Arika Okrent" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:36:35 -0800 Subject: [lojban] Re: sign language in Lojban Received: from [68.238.190.37] by ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com with http for arika@okrent.com; Sun, 03 Dec 2006 13:36:35 -0800 X-Originating-Ip: 68.238.190.37 X-Originating-Server: ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com Message-Id: <20061203213635.A9A922F91C@ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 13305 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: arika@okrent.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list > More interesting (and you say > less devweloped) is > whether ASL has a syntax different from English, even Signed English and > whether that might > influence writing even if the words used were ordinary English, not > cheirography. Whoa. I usually try to limit my list responding playtime to once per day, but I feel compelled to respond here because if I have somehow communicated that the question of whether ASL syntax is different from English is not good and settled, then I have completely failed in my capacity as sign language spokesperson. ASL syntax is totally different from English syntax. However, when linguists talk about ASL syntax, they use English glosses for the signs for the sake of convenience. Meaning I will write: [MONEY]topic [I HAVE]neg. 'As for money, I don't have any All caps are used to remind you that MONEY is just a label for the ASL sign for "money"--you could just as well call it Zarcon74, but that wouldn't be as convenient. 'topic' means the topicalization marker (an eyebrow raise/head tilt) lasts for the duration of the articulaion of MONEY. 'neg' means a negation marker (a head shake) lasts for the duration of the rest. It's as if I wrote Spanish like this: NO HAVE[1st pers] NOTHING OF MONEY. You could totally describe Spanish syntax using this type of notation. Signed English wishes it were the flip side of this coin -- a way of speaking English using ASL signs as glosses for the English words. Except that it's hapazardly executed -- usually performed simultaneously with speech, which means a lot of important signs get dropped, which means the deaf people watching it lose about 30% of the information, which means it's a horrible bastard 'language' that has helped rob a generation of deaf kids of a good education. -arika ************ Arika Okrent arika@okrent.com http://www.wickedoasis.org/arika To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.