PRONOUNS IN ASL

AGENDA

1.  Define pronoun 2.  Explore phonological aspects 3.  Group Activity: Look at examples and

identify various strategies used in ASL pronominal systems

Count the Pronouns

Jules glanced into the far room at the aquarium where the old woman kept

the big rattlesnake. He couldn’t figure out how he’d missed the thing

before. It was as though they had just appeared. When he did find it,

he asked her to cover it with an overturned end table, just to be sure.

Count the Pronouns

Chomsky’s Competency versus Performance

•  Competency -- the linguistic knowledge that the native speaker has

•  Performance -- the native speaker’s

use of the language

Soapbox •  Degrees,

professionalism, and a shared body of knowledge

•  Competence and performance

What is the definition of a pronoun?

•  N. One of a class of words that function as substitutes for nouns

or noun phrases and denotes persons or things asked for,

previously designated, or understood from the context.

What is the function of a pronoun?

• A pronoun’s role is to make communications

efficient, reduce redundancy

The purpose of the pronoun is to make communication more efficiency

Jules glanced into the far room at the aquarium where the old woman kept the big rattlesnake. (Jules) couldn’t figure out how (Jules) had missed (the aquarium with the big rattlesnake) before. It was as though (the aquarium with the big rattlesnake) had just appeared. When (Jules) did find (the aquarium with the big rattlesnake), (Jules) asked (the old woman) to cover (the aquarium with the big rattlesnake) with an overturned end table, just to be sure.

The purpose of the pronoun is to make communication more efficiency

Jules glanced into the far room at the aquarium where the old woman kept the big rattlesnake. He couldn’t figure out how he’d missed the thing before. It was as though they had just appeared. When he did find it, he asked her to cover it with an overturned end table, just to be sure.

Theoretical Contradictions

•  Not all languages have pronouns, or do they?

•  Fact: Pronominal forms are not universal. – Does it follow second language

theory: the more divergent they are from your native language the more difficult to grasp?

How is efficiency accomplished?

There are 2 main ideas to get from this discussion:

1.  Pronouns are created from the simplest of linguistic parts.

2. There are relaxed (weak) morphological

forms in the pragmatics of communication.

•  D’jeet yet? •  Can be/can go

•  Cheese nacho mama •  Ten percent

•  Tell’em I’m home •  Even though Bev was right there, she

still told her the story! •  Shawn talked about Mike and his trip to

Jamaica.

Linguistics

Linguistics • Phonology • Morphology

• Syntax • Semantics • Pragmatics

Phonology

Smallest unit of linguistic study Unit is meaningless in and of itself Combines with other phonemes to create morphemes

Morphology Smallest unit of meaning; word/sign Combines with other morphemes to create sentences Also lexicon, lexemes

Syntax The study of sentential and phrasal organization of the communication Also referred to as the grammar of a language

blue sky sky blue

MOVIE FINISH FINISH, MOVIE

Semantics •  The study of meaning; specifically

how meaning is grasped from a communication event

•  Ambiguity -- a word, phrase, sentence, or other communication is called ambiguous if it can be interpreted in more than one way.

Pragmatics

The study of language as it is used in a social context, including its effect on the interlocutors.

Pragmatics is concerned with bridging the gap between sentence meaning and speaker’s meaning. The study of how context influences the interpretation is then crucial.

Back to EFFICIENCY

• All morphemes are made up of phonological elements

• Pronouns fall into the very simple, most basic articulations.

LIST ENGLISH PRONOUNS

Consonants

Consonants

Unmarked versus Marked

Unmarked are simple fffffffvvvvvvvfffffffffvvvvvvv

Marked are more complex they/thick bath/break

Vowels

SHOW ASL PRONOUNS

Phonology of ASL

ASL has five major divisions on the phonological level:

– Handshape – Palm orientation – Location – Movement – Non-manual signals

Unmarked Handshapes

B A S 1 C 0 5

Strong versus Weak

Strong versus Weak Forms

Citation form – the way a morpheme is pronounced (articulated) in isolation

In connected speech, morphemes are often

produced in altered forms. Think of the difference between handwriting in print and cursive.

Strong versus Weak Forms

Cursive writing is a good example of the effects language and communication has on the micro-level and the variations are many and not always as distinguishable as a nice pretty print. Word and sign pronunciations go through the same permutations when they are put in the communication event.

Strong versus Weak Forms

Assimilation: – Anticipation

– Preservation

ASL Pronominal Systems

•  The ASL pronominal system is sub-divided depending on whether the person/place/thing is present or not present in the communication environment

ASL Pronominal Systems

•  ASL pronouns are different from English pronouns in several ways:

–  In ASL (as in Chinese) the same pronouns can be used to refer to people or things, males or females

–  The grammatical role (e.g. subject/object) of the pronoun in ASL does not change form as it does in English: He told them. They told him.

ASL Pronominal Systems •  One way that ASL takes

advantage of the 3-dimensional nature of ASL is to set up or establish non-present referents in specific locations around his/her body.

•  This way the signer can point to these locations and those points serve as pronouns.

Here is a list of lexemes that serve pronoun roles:

•  Pointing or extending index finger (YOU,

ME, THEY, etc.) •  Flat hand (YOUR, MY, etc.) – possessive •  Closed fist (SELF) – reflexive •  Y-handshape (THAT-ONE) •  Semi-open, relaxed 5-handshape

(honorific YOU) •  2-hand, 3-hand, 4-hand, etc.

Here is a list of behaviors that serve pronoun roles:

•  Head nods •  Gaze behaviors •  Facial movements

When using a pronoun to refer to non-present noun:

•  Reality Principle,

where referents are placed according to their arrangement in real space.

•  When reality principle cannot be used, there is often the use of patterns.

When using a pronoun to refer to non-present noun:

•  Once a signer establishes a referent in space, all

future references should be consistent with that initial location unless the referent has clearly been moved.

•  Once a signer has established a reference point, other signers in the conversation will also make consistent use of that space when referring to same person (with exceptions depending on the proximity of signers to each other).

Pronominal reference points can be made in the following ways:

Making the sign in a particular location. •  Fingerspelling the name of the referent in a

particular location. •  Directing head and eye movements toward a

particular location while making the sign or fingerspelling the name of the referent. This strategy can be used alone or paired with other markers.

•  Using a pronoun (POSS-rt, SELF-lf) right after the sign is made.

•  Using a classifier that represents the referent. •  Using a directional verb (LOAN).

Non-dominant hand referents This is a modification of the listing technique and

there are several ways referents can be established:

•  Pointing to a specific finger on the non-dominant hand and then fingerspelling with the dominant hand.

•  Resting the butt of the dominant hand on the non-dominant finger while spelling the referent.

•  Showing the non-dominant finger and then signing the referent, or vice versa.

Wikipedia.com

Pro-Drop •  A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-

dropping") is a language where pronouns can be deleted when they

are in some sense pragmatically inferable

•  The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be

quite intricate.

Wikipedia.com

Pro-Drop •  In everyday speech there are

often instances when who or what is being referred to can be

inferred from context.

•  In a pro-drop language, the pronouns that in other languages would have those referents can be omitted, or be phonologically

null.

Wikipedia.com

Pro-Drop •  Among major languages, a clear cut

case of a pro-drop language is Japanese (featuring pronoun deletion

not only for subjects, but for practically all grammatical contexts).

•  Mandarin and American Sign Language also exhibit frequent pro-

drop features.

Group activity

Vowels Front Mid Back eve /i/ bird / R/ boot / u/ it / I/ up / A/ foot / U/ hate / e/ obey / o/

met / E/ all / c/

at / @/ father / a/