- Welcome back to my channel,
the best place for new signers,
intermediate signers and struggling signers.
In today's video,
we're gonna go over topic in your ASL sentences.
This is part two of a three-part series.
Last part, part one, was time and today is topic.
So if you've ever wondered
what the heck do I mean by topic anyway
and how to find it, how to identify it,
and then where it goes in your ASL sentences, keep watching.
(text tinkling)
What is topic?
Rochelle, what in the heck do you mean when you say topic?
Topic is a really fancy way of saying,
what is the whole point of this sentence?
What are we talking about?
So a topic can be any noun,
a person place, thing, animal, idea.
So it could be your sister Jane,
it could be Bali,
it could be a feeling like happy or depressed,
it could be an idea like, oh my gosh,
all of a sudden the, (snaps fingers)
the next fusion bomb, it popped into my head from "Clue."
I don't know why that was just floating there,
but if you haven't ever seen that movie,
you really ought to, it's a good one.
Anyway and it could be an animal like a lion,
my favorite animal by the way,
so if you ever feel inclined to send me a gift,
I like lions. (chuckles)
I will take a live lion, mm, to hold and to hug. (chuckles)
Okay, now, in an ASL sentence,
you can have multiple nouns in it, right?
Just like in an English sentence,
you can have multiple nouns in your sentence.
The key is to really find the whole point of the sentence.
So you wanna make sure, is that what the sentence is about
or who it's about?
Really look at it and examine it and say,
"Oh, it's not this,
it's not the stapler or it's not the desk,
I'm actually talking about my office.
That is the main topic and all of this is just detail."
So where do you put the topic?
You put the topic at the beginning of the sentence.
I know you're like,
"But hold up, in the last video you said to put time
at the beginning of the sentence."
Yes I did. (chuckles)
So if you have time in your sentence, the time goes first,
then immediately after is your topic.
If you do not have time in your sentence,
topic is first and then the rest follows, okay?
So if you have time put the topic directly after the time,
if you don't put the topic first.
That's it.
Let's head over to the computer
so you can really get a feel for it
and see what do I mean by topic,
some examples of the topic,
where it goes into ASL sentences,
so it's a really solid thing for you to understand.
All right here we are at the computer.
Let's dive into the topic, examples.
Okay, we saw this sentence in the first video.
Let's look at it.
So yesterday my dog vet visit.
So what we're gonna do, again,
if you didn't see the first one,
this is written in ASL gloss,
so it's in all caps and we are identifying the signs
in the order that they are to be signed.
Now, we're going to identify the time
and then the topic in these examples, okay?
So yesterday my dog vet visit.
So in this instance, yesterday,
we know yesterday is the time sign, it's here in yellow.
And my dog is the topic we're talking about.
My dog, not your dog, not Sally's dog, but mine,
and so I've highlighted in this light pink, all right?
Time, then the topic.
Let's go to the next sentence.
Alligator, they fascinating.
So we're gonna identify the time
and the topic in this sentence.
There is no time in this sentence,
I'm sure you were like,
"Rochelle, there's no time in this sentence.
What are you doing?"
I knew that. (chuckles)
So there's no time in this sentence,
so therefore the topic would be
the first sign in the sentence.
Alligator, alligators are the topic of this sentence.
We saw this sentence before, recent test I fail.
What was the time sign?
It was recent and then the topic is the test
because we failed the test,
so we're not talking about our failure,
we're talking about our test.
Recent is the time, test is the topic.
All right, here is a longer sentence.
Soon, now this fs, this lowercase fs,
if you see this in front of a word, like this,
it's attached, there's no space here,
fs means finger spell,
so this is in a little bit of ASL gloss format.
Now, the whole sentence isn't in like pure ASL gloss format,
like I don't have like all the notes
and the lines indicating questions
and facial expressions and all that kind of thing,
but this fs means finger spell, so this means soon,
and then I'm gonna finger spell Jane, Jane, okay?
So soon Jane she my friend move where?
Eugene, Oregon, excuse me, University of Oregon she attend.
I'm kind of giving a couple of thoughts here.
Where is she moving?
Eugene.
She's going to the University of Oregon.
She's gonna attend this university that's in Eugene.
Okay?
So first let's identify the time and then the topic.
So soon is the time.
Soon, so sometime in the future soon,
who is this whole thing about?
It's about my friend and her name is Jane.
So we're gonna say Jane.
Now, my friend isn't the topic
because that's just giving us details about Jane.
Jane is who we're talking about.
It could be a stranger, it could be somebody,
I read it on the news report somewhere,
or say I eavesdropped on a conversation,
like, she doesn't necessarily have to be my friend,
but it's still about Jane.
So soon, Jane, we could cut this out in the sentence,
it would still makes sense.
Soon, Jane is moving where?
She's moving to Eugene
to attend the University of Oregon.
So this is why Jane is the topic and not my friend
and not Eugene and not University of Oregon.
Those are just details about Jane, about what she's doing.
So this is a longer example where there are other nouns
and other things happening in the sentence
that could confuse you.
So the topic is Jane.
If you want more help with the topic,
you wanna dive in deeper,
I highly recommend you check out Grammar in Your Pocket.
Grammar in Your Pocket is a five-day
supercharged grammar mini course
that really dives deep into the ASL sentence parts
and helps you to construct ASL sentences
using my proprietary Four W's Pyramid tool.
There's quizzes and workbooks and examples,
like way more than was in this video
to really help you identify and use properly the topic
and time and comments and all the various types of comments.
So you can stop going,
"Oh my gosh, I just wanna take these signs that I'm learning
and sign them correctly and put them in the right order
and start using them right away."
This is that answer for you.
So if you're confused
about how to make your own ASL sentences,
this is the perfect place for you to start.
So check out grammarinyourpocket.co.