it would be impossible for me to review all aspects of grammar and syntax in
this little short video but i do want to make sure I hit on the basics so that
you can figure out where your own weaknesses are and what you might need
to review before you move forward in learning the syntax of american sign
language
first you need to understand what a noun is a noun and what a verb is nouns are the
people places things and ideas that do things in our sentences then that doing
is the verb so i have a sentence like Mary jumps the fence then Mary is a noun
and the fence is a noun and then the verb explains what one noun
does to another jumps if i have the sentance Maria is a doctor then you have
Maria which is a noun and you have dr. which is a noun and you have is which is
not an action but it's the relationship between the two nouns
similarly if I said you seem tired
well then I have you which is a noun actually it's a special type of noun called a
pronoun because it stands in place of your name or in place of the
the actual noun itself
things like he she it you me things like that but you would function as
a noun there because you is the thing that seems and then seems is the verb
it's not only the action but it's the relationship it's going to say something
about the noun is going to do something in relation to the noun
so if I have you the noun seem then you have tired now tired is not a noun tired
is a descriptor which brings us to our second category descriptors can be
adjectives these are words that describe nouns adverbs
these are words that describe verbs
or determiners determiners you've already touched on a bit in morphology
as you have some of these other categories and determiners as you know
tell us which ones we are talking about is all people all boys
some boys every boy
my friend your friend all friends
the friends that friend which one these are determiners these functions
descriptors as well
now descriptors can sometimes come before the noun or a verb and they can
sometimes come at the end of sentences
so if you say John is tired well then tired is a descriptor describing John in
the verb again just puts the relationship between the two
so so far we have nouns the people places things and ideas
verbs the actions relationships adjectives which describe the nouns
adverbs which describe the verbs and determines which tell us which nouns are
talking about
there are other parts of speech as well conjunctions that show
connections between things so if i want to say
not just that Maria is tired but that Maria and Jill are tired and the and
puts them both Maria and Jill together in one category
you have interrogatives interrogatives or the question words that we have who
what when where why how many how much
exclamations are words that don't really have any grammatical relationship to
anything else in a sentence they just sort of express an idea all of
themselves
all on their own so if i were to say something like oh gosh oh gosh is an
exclamation our curse words often functions as exclamations oh shit
that would be an exclamation and we have models and helping verbs these
usually work with the verb to make a more specific idea
so if for example I wanted to say not just that I am tired but I could be tired
whell could be tired has could as a helping verb or a modal we call them in
linguistics generally if I wanted to say that you read well
I could change that to say you did read well in that case in English it's not a
model but it's a helping verb it's a verb that goes with the word read to
somehow modify somehow make more specific its meaning we're going to talk
more about modals later so don't worry too much if you don't have a great
understanding of those that said you do want to make sure that you can identify
very easily nouns verbs adjectives adverbs and determiners those are going
to be the building blocks of what we do for the rest of the unit
now another thing we need to consider is what are the specifics of the sentence
so what are the specifics of the way that the nouns relate to one another we
can identify what is a noun
how do we identify what noun does what in the sentence and that's where the idea
of subjects and objects comes into play
so if you take a sentence like Maria kicked the ball then we can identify the
nouns Maria and ball and we can identify the verb kick but which ball's
doing the kicking
which- I'm sorry which noun is doing the kicking and which now is being kicked
well in the sentence
Maria kicked the ball Maria is the subject the one doing the kicking and
then the ball is the object the thing being kicked if we have a sentence that
doesn't involve any people
we can still have subjects and objects for example if i gave you the sentence
the desk contains a computer and a printer the desk contains a computer and
a printer then in that sentence
the desk is the subject that's the thing doing the containing and then the
objects in the sentence are the computer and the printer you have computer-printer
both objects joined together by a conjunction
so in that sentence even though there's no person you still can have a subject
and object because you still have the thing that's doing the verb the desk
containing and then you still have the things that are being
contained: computer printer now some sentences don't have objects at all
they might simply just to have a descriptor so if you have a sentence
like the picture is beautiful
then you have the picture which is a noun you have is which is a verb
describing the relationship between picture and what's coming next and then
pretty or beautiful which is an adjective that's describing the
picture
similarly if you had a sentence like the ball rolled slowly
well then it wouldn't- you might be tempted to see subject verb object but
that wouldn't be right
you have the ball which is a subject you have rolled which is a verb but then
slowly is a descriptor that's described- it's an adverb that's describing the
verb how the ball rolls slowly so make sure that you don't see three parts of a
sentence and automatically assume that subject verb object now finally you can
have topics and sentences topics are like many questions do not think of them
as something like the main idea of a sentence that's not what the topic is a
topic instead is a particular grammatical feature when you sort of
ask a small question and then go on to answer the question yourself
so if you were in a discussion with someone and you heard the person
mentioned Maria and you know that Maria is John's girlfriend then you might say
oh maria that's John's girlfriend
well that Oh Maria that you say where you're recognizing that Maria is who is
being talked about is sort of a little question where you're bringing up Maria
and then you're going to say something about her that's John's girlfriend
that's what a topic is in linguistics when you bring up an idea with a little
question expression in some way and then you go on to say something more about it
do not think of the topic as the main idea of the sentence or the subject of
the sentence in a non grammatical sense right topic and subject in
lingustics and grammar very specific ideas that have to do with how they
function in the sentence where they are not with what the main idea of the
sentence is
so let's practice with a couple I see the apple
let's see if you can identify the subject and the object of this sentence
if there is an object in this sentence you have I which is the noun in this case
it's a little pronoun that's doing the seeing and then you have the Apple the
thing being seen
so I is the subject the Apple is the object and of course see is the verb the
office contains three desks in this sentence you have subjects in an object
even though there are no people
the subject is the office which is the thing doing the containing and then the
three desks is the object of the things being contained my friend is in
the park
this is a complicated sentence that contains a little bit more structure
than the others because you have my friend which is the subject is which is
the verb and that's connecting idea friend and park now park is part of
another little phrase called a prepositional phrase in the park which
we'll talk about a bit later
so my friend is a subject is would be the verb and then park could be
considered an object because it's part of the prepositional phrase but the
whole phrase in the park is a descriptor which is describing where the friend is
then
Martita walked slowly in this you have
Martita the subject during the walking walked the verb and then slowly is a
descriptor that's describing the walking
it's an adverb in this case describing walking the next set of sentences the
movie
I loved it in this you have a topic
the movie a little mini question and then you go on to comment on the movie I
subject loved verb and it an object in this case it being a pronoun which is
substituting for the term movie
ok
now I recognize that this lesson has not done a comprehensive job of explaining
everything about linguistics the Linguistics of English or the grammar of
English everything you probably should have learned in middle school and high
school but that said I hope it's giving you enough information for you to see
what you do understand what you don't
for you to go and look for some more background on the subject before we
delve deeper and before some of your areas of ambiguity in areas that you're
a little weaker on cause you trouble in your ASL
so if there's anything you're missing right now go find out about it
go look it up make sure you can identify all the terms that I've used here so
that you're ready to use them in the next few lessons as we learn more about
ASL syntax