now we're going to move on to perhaps the richest part of ASL morphology
verbal morphology
first you know action words are words that show doing and we've already
mentioned how verbs can take lots of types of morphemes that is you can
bind certain types of facial expressions with certain types of movements to verbs
and today we're going to talk about the different categories of verbs that take
different types of bound morphemes now in English there are certain down
morphemes that can be added to certain words and other morphemes that can't
for example if you want to make the verb establish into a noun
you can't say establish-tion you have to stay establish-ment but if you want to
make the verb populate into a noun you can't stay populate-ment you have to
say popula-tion so certain types of word take certain types of endings
well it's the same way with ASL verbs certain types of verbs can take certain
types of bound morphemes now some verbs don't take any type of morpheme verbs
like have or think or know they can't be inflicted in any way you can't change
their change their movement to change what they mean if you think of the sign
HAVE you can't perform it in a circle to mean have for a long time
you can't sign it in different areas to mean you have or I have or to mean have
something in a particular area
the sign THINK similarly has to be signed at the forehead
notice here i'm talking about this I'm THINK not behind THINK ABOUT or CONSIDER
two different signs that sign can be inflicted
so these are plain signs now verbs that show length of time inflections
are verbs like WRITE WORK
TYPE or POSTPONE those words can be modified in such a way that they show WRITE for a
long time by making a circular movement or WORK for a long time with a circular
movement or TYPE again and again with that rapid back and forth movement that
changes the meaning to mean again and again or POSTPONED again and again by
that repeated motion
so these types of verbs do inflect to a small degree to show you
what's called aspect that is whether something's happening once continuously
or repeatedly now as we move down the list we can see certain verbs that are
sometimes called directional verbs but I'd like for this to be a little more specific than
that
some of these verbs show where things happen
verbs like GO or DRIVE to POST on a wall or HURT
these are called locative verbs because they tell the location of something
and these verbs are also able to inflect for length of time so you can take the
sign TO GO and mean going again and again or go continually you can sign
HURT for a long time or hurt repeatedly as well as moving these verbs to show
different locations now depicting verbs are probably what you were originally
told were called classifiers and these verbs operate in a similar way they
operate in free space that they can be modified not only show where things are
happening but also to show that the aspect of the length of time
something's happening now don't confuse those types of "directional verbs"
with what we call agreeing verbs or indicating verbs now agreeing verbs
and indicating verbs operate very similarly to these other spatial verbs
but with agreeing verbs they're not showing where things are happening
whether they're showing to whom things are happening and who is doing things they
show the subject and the object and the verb
who does it and who do they do it to so these verbs like TELL and INFORM and
TEASE and YELL AT can be modified to show who is doing them one to another
and they can also be modified
like all the verbs above in the list to show the length of time whether it
happens once for a long time or repeatedly and that means sometimes have
verbs that fall into a category that's difficult to label these verbs that some
people seem to think you can use in an agreeing way and some people don't
or that can be used to agree with certain subjects and objects but not
with others
so take the verb to SEE for example well if I see you I can move
that verb from me to you but I would never move that verb from you to
me to show you seeing me
it has to start at the faces outward so i can modify the verb to a certain
degree to see a person on the right or see a person on the left but it has to start
at my face I can't say that one person sees me with a simple movement of the
verb
similarly IGNORE has to start at the nose so if he ignores me it still starts at
my nose
I can't modify it fully to show he does it to me
so these are what are called semi inflectional verbs verbs that
that are able to take on certain inflections certain morphemes but not
all of them
so make sure that you're able to understand how some verbs cannot change
their movement at all plain verbs some can change the movement only to show
aspect length of time and some change their movement to show location or
to show agreement
who does what to whom now as we look at these types of verbs there's one
particular type of verb that can be a little confusing
it's an agreeing verbal or indicating verb the two words mean the same
thing but it moves in the direction opposite of what you would
expect these are called backward verbs
so if you think about it most agreeing verbs move from the subject to the
object if I give to you then the sign give moves for me to you or if i look at
you then the verb move slightly from me toward you that's I look at you but
backwards verbs are different they move from the object to the subject
so if i SUMMON you when i start with my hands farther out and pull it back to me
so it's moving from you the one being summoned to be the one doing the
summoning
i summon you or if I hire you that it moves from you to me
if you hire me and it moves from my hand moves from me to you so be aware that
certain verbs backward verbs don't move in the way you'd expect but they're
still agreeing or indicating verbs because they still show who does what to
whom in that sense they can still be modified to show aspect to show repeated
motion or to show continual motion