when people think about how American Sign Language expresses the concept of
time they often do so in generalizations by saying things such as oh in American
sign language you always sign the time
first these generalizations
while perhaps helpful for students who are beginning to learn ASL won't serve
you as you move on to more advanced uses of the language
so let's take a look at how time is expressed in American Sign Language
the first thing that we should remember is that time signs and modals are two
different things
modals are helping verbs auxiliary whatever we call them are those
verbs such as the sign finish will did these signs that that
do bear some relationship to time but that are used more for emphasis
and remember modals occur either just before the main verb or they can
be repeated at the very end of the sentence but they relate to emphatic
uses they emphasize something did happen it has indeed finished or it will
happen is going to or perhaps that it's possible or necessary time signs on the
other hand are these general signs that we used to talk about time
signs like monday last week two weeks ago next month next year
these signs can occur in different places
while it's true that time signs often occur in the topicalized information at
the beginning of the sentence
that's not the only place they can occur in topicalized information they
occur as a way of giving background letting the person that you're talking
to know when the event that you're about to describe happened if you use for
example this first sentence
then you've set up the time with yesterday and then you can go on to
speak about whatever you want to talk about in this case i've said i ate
the apple and i did use a modal so that emphasize that it did happen yesterday
perhaps if I'm arguing about someone and they say that I ate the Apple two
days ago and i want to emphasize that no in fact it was yesterday and I did do
it then I would do that but I can go on to talk about other things like going to
the store or maybe buying groceries and as I sign those signs because I've
already established that yesterday is the background information it'll be
assumed that everything I'm talking about is yesterday that will continue
until I give a new time sign or I in some way indicate that i'm not i'm no
longer talking about yesterday but talking about a different period in the
second example we have the information in the background and in
that sentence
the last week is set up again as part of the background information
the point of emphasis of what i'm saying is that i read the book
now in these sentences
we have time signs that don't occur at the beginning but that occur at the end
of the sentence when the time is not the background but it's the information
you're wanting to give if maybe you know that i read the book but you don't know
when I did it
then i would sign the sign this way because last week is what I'm trying
to tell you
emphatic point so it would come toward the end of the sentence so i might sign a
sentence like the first one again or in the
second sentence when I say that I started to study for the test
last night i'm emphasizing it was just last night so I wouldn't put last
night as the as the topic because that would imply that last night is
background and what I'm trying to tell you is what i did last night but i would
put last night
as in this sentence at the end because I'm saying okay the test
well I started to study for it and here's the point it was just last night
oh my goodness maybe i'm going to fail so when you put these times at the end
they give that emphasis to the time itself so that second sentence would be
signed like this again in order to
think about time and really to think about topics locations and just a flow of
information in ASL in general it's helpful to remember information to
remember this schematic information that's put in the topic isn't is the
least emphasized its the background information
it's what you say just so that you can give other information
it's what you need to to bring to the mind of the person you're talking to
so that you can say other things other things that come up in the sentence and
then the emphasis of the sentence the most emphatic thing tends to be at the very
end of the sentence so sentences flow from old background information to the
emphasized new information which is at the very very end of the sentence but
remember this too is just a helpful paradigm for how information is laid
out there are many instances where it's difficult to put the exact ASL word order
into this pattern
so this should be used as a pattern but you should not think of it as some sort
of law that cannot be violated