as we continue to look at the morphology of american sign language
we continue to explore the rich inflectional system that ASL has in
particular the verbal structure of ASL provides numerous
examples we've already talked about the fact that certain types of verbs take
certain types of inflections some are plain some verbs can take inflections
related to location locative verbs some are depicting verbs and they change
depending on the shape of the object they're representing some are agreeing
verbs or indicating verbs are also called that show interaction between
various people subjects and objects and so forth
so let's take a look at this a little bit further first we know that certain
verbs can be inflected to show particular types of meanings
whatever types of inflections there are these infections are bound morphemes
that are added to the free morpheme to the verb
some of these are movement inflections some of these are facial expressions in
particular their mouth movements that change the meaning of these verbs
when we look at movement inflections one of the first examples that we see are
movement inflections that come with agreeing verbs these verbs inflect to
show subject and object agreement so with these indicating verbs or
agreeing verbs
we have some forms that are fully inflected and some forms that are semi
inflected now a fully inflected verb starts at the subject and goes to the
object
so if i say i give to you and it starts at me
the subject what doing the action and it goes all the way to the object the one
who the action is being done to I give to you
you give to me it could also be
he is starting off to the side
he tells me he tells me I tell her/him
so in these situations that are fully inflex from the
it goes from x whoever that subject is to y whoever the object is GIVE SEND
LOOK AT these can be fully inflected
they can also be what are called semi inflected which means they start in
neutral space and then they go to the object
so if i say the teacher gave me
I may not ever set the teacher up in space so i may not you may not know
where the teacher is but if i say the teacher gives me then it's just going to
come from neutral space
- - to me to the object I mean if i say the teacher gives you and I haven't set
the teacher up in space then the teacher starts in neutral space gives you
I won't start it from me to you because I'm not the teacher or from over there
because I maybe haven't chosen to set the teacher up on either side so it's
just semi in fact that it still moves toward whoever the object is but it
doesn't start at the subject
another type of movement inflection is the movement inflection to show the
duration of time over which something happens
there are several of these, four of them we'll talk about right now
the first inflection is the repeatedly inflection and this inflection involves
the sort of zigzag motion in the verb to study again and again to look at again
and again that can be contrasted with the continuous motion the motion that
gives the idea of something that happens for a long time without a break
so to stare at now that gives the idea that i'm just looking for a long time at
one particular thing whereas repeatedly gives the idea that i look then maybe I do
something else and I looked and I do something else
sort of a half way mixture of those two movements inflection is the over and over
inflection this inflection implies that something is done with a lot of effort
and perhaps in a tiring way
so if you say you study over and over again that could be so that's
almost like the back and forth of repeatedly and almost like the circular
but instead it combines the two a final movement inflection that
can be added to some verbs is the movement inflection of quickly and that is
a sign just as you would expect just to study very briefly to read something
very briefly glanced at something that the sign itself is formed with a quick
motion to show that the idea of the the left of the verb is performed in a quick
way along with these sorts of movement infletions we see what's called the
distributive movement inflection which certain verbs can take with the
distributive movement inflection you can modify the verb to show the idea of it
it interacts with many instances of a particular object or with all instances
of that object
so for example if I talk about a class of students and I say that I give to
each one a paper then it is signed in such a way that shows
giving to each the sort of back and forth zigzag as opposed to the sweeping
arc which would mean to give to all the same as I could tell to each student a
story or I could tell to all the story
so the distributive aspect shows at either the fact that something is done
to each one or that something is done to all as a group and most verbs that are
agreeing verbs can be modified in this way so you can look at each student or
look at all the students another interesting
inflection that can happen with certain agreeing verbs is the reciprocal
inflection the idea that something is done from the object to the subject and
from the subject to the object and from the object to the subject both
directions
so two people can look at one another or understand one another or give to one
another
this gives the idea that both the subject and the object are interacting
and it's obviously a much more economical way of saying something in
English which requires this to one another one signs simply does that in
American Sign Language
now that we've talked about the movement inflection you can see that there's
also a rich and verbal facial inflection system
now these are called facial inflections but really they center around the mouth
the eyebrows in ASL tell us about the types of sentences whether they're
questions or WH questions are rhetorical questions or what not
whereas the mouth itself is used to modify the meaning of verbs and
adjectives in this case we have verbs that can be modified the first example
we have is this one was labeled TH and when that accompanies a verb it
means that the verbal is done in a careless or haphazard way so you could
read something in a careless way or drive in a careless way
secondly you have the puff
of cheeks which gives the idea that something is done a lot
perhaps you work a lot or you read a lot
the LA or sometimes the AH facial expression gives the idea that a verb is
done for a long distance so to drive at a great distance could be
signed this way or simply with AH star
STA is a facial expression that can be added to a verb to show that it's done
with great difficulty
so if you work really hard all day then you might sign
notice that there's also the circular inflection which shows the idea
of continuously so together with the continuous motion which means for a long
time and the STA which means with great difficulty then that shows that you
worked really hard all day
similarly the the bared teeth with a verb indicates that the verb is done
intensely or with a lot of effort
so you could also sign that you worked really hard all day or if you
were staring at something with a great intensity
you might bare your teeth to show that you look at something trying to figure it
out
another facial adverb that can be added as the MMM
facial adverb performed this way
that facial adverb means that something is done just in the normal way you're
sort of emphasizing how routine something was routinely normally often
this is used just before you explain that something unexpected happened
for example perhaps you were just walking along when suddenly you tripped
on something you might say that you were walking normally and then you trip and
then finally we have the OO or the OOH facial expression which is used to
emphasize that something is done with little effort very easily if you wrote
something very easily you simply or read it very easily
now this is not an exhaustive list of all facial expressions that can be added
to verbs but this will give you something to look for
just remember when you're using these you're not miming try to avoid
thinking of this is some sort of pantomime
you need to act out what it's like to to type in a haphazard way no you're not
acting out at all you're using the face to add a meaning
so you don't need to sort of pantomime what you're doing when you use
the facial expressions correctly