now that we've taken a look at SVO subject-verb-object sentences
let's look at some other sentences remember not all sentences in ASL are
set up as subjects verbs and objects of course there are some sentences without
objects or some sentences even in ASL that omit the verb
also remember that the shorter forms of sentences are more common in ASL than they
are in English English speakers have a preference for longer sentences with
lots of parts
where's ASL speakers tend to prefer shorter sentences where ideas are
expressed in a series of short sentences rather than one long sentence
so in the first example we have we have sentences that have a subject which of
course is a noun and a verb subject verb sentences now with these sentences the
subject may or may not be a topic
remember if you put something in the topic you're sort of setting it up as
background information making it seem a little bit less a part of the point of
what you're saying in the sentence
whereas if you leave the subject as a part of the sentence and don't set it
off as a topic then it's taken as to be more part of the emphasis of the
sentence
so the difference between making the subject a topic and not making the
subject a topic is really marginal and often difficult to pinpoint so in the
first we do have the subject set aside as the topic we have the determiner the
boy and then we have the affirmative portion of the sentence run
so we have
we then have a sentence where the subject is not set aside as the topic
your mom left your mom is leaving because we don't know the tense
of the sentence
we can't say whether or not that sign leave indicates past tense or present or
future
so with that sentence we have also a negation over the sentence in which case
the sentence is going to to mean not the mom is leaving or did leave but that
the mom did not leave or is not leaving
so here we have again with the negation throughout here we have another sentence
where there is affirmative use throughout subject and verb again and
then finally a sentence where you have a subject and a verb
remember what's written here as CL:1 is the depicting verb so
it's 1 and we have the parentheses which shows us walk by
so my teacher walked by and here the teacher is set apart as a topic
we can also have two part sentences with a subject and the descriptor the
descriptor might be an adjective
as in the sentence again it could be a prepositional phrase is a phrase that
shows where something happened in this case we have his friend is not at the
park because the negation and that would be signed like this again
and then we have sentences where the subject is followed by a description
that's an adjective in this sentence the subject is not set apart as a subject as
set apart as a topic and that's okay but it's all part of the the main sentence
with a negation over it so the sentences i am not happy
and again
and then finally we have a subject with a descriptor
that is a noun
normally we think of descriptors as adverbs adjectives maybe prepositional
phrases but nouns can also be descriptors in this case the sentence is
saying that my sister is a doctor
so the doctor which is a noun is describing my sister in this case i did
not separate my sister as a topic although I certainly could have but in
this case it's all a part of the one
affirmative part of the sentence so I have again
so the thing to take away from these sentences that have a subject and a verb
a subject in the descriptor is that the subject may or may not be a topic but
the descriptor or the verb is not going to make a topic it wouldn't make sense
to make the descriptor itself a topic in these sentences so you would never have
a sentence like this first one i have listed here where it says my father old
you would never put old in the topic there
the old is what you're trying to say it's the description you're giving
topics are always background information you could have the subject as part of
the topic but you'd never have the descriptor the verb whether the
descriptor happens to be an adjective and adverb a prepositional phrase or
even a noun as is in the last sentence