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From:
Mark Marine Date: Wed Aug 25, 1999 10:17 pm Subject: Re: SignWriting principles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Joe Martin: Please!!!! Do not e-mail this address with your cursing. It is NOT appreciated. Thank you. Stacy M. -----Original Message----- From: Joe Martin To: SignWriting List Date: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 4:42 PM Subject: SignWriting principles >Martin (and everybody): > >Reference: >Valli, Clayton & Lucas, Ceil. Linguistics of American Sign Language; An >Introduction. >Washington DC. Gallaudet U Press. 1992 >This is a good overview of the whole business, for beginners or others. >Mainly in English, only some basic linguistish. You won't find this stuff >on the web. > >Something to chew on.... any and all comments welcome) > >Like Valerie says, Signwriting isn't like Written Chinese, or written >English either. Although all three consist of a sequence of units strung >together, in Chinese writing the units are words. (morphemes if you wanna >be all precise) In the other two the units aren't words, they're >something smaller. > >People often assume that signing takes place in three dimensional space, >and that speech has a fourth dimension of time with one sound following >another. Actually, signing also happens in time with one sign following >another, and if speech doesn'take place in three dimensional space, where >does it? > >If all we had was the one dimension, time, then speech would be a boring >continuous >........uuuuuhhh...... Lucky for us though things change within each >segment of time. When the second segment changes, instead of [ uu ], we >get .[ up ]. Same in signed languages; James is very right that sign >language is linear. A classic example in ASL is two signs that start by >moving a B-hand out from your mouth .. First two segments are the same in >both, third segment is different in one because in that one you close your >hand to a fist. First one means "THANK YOU, second one means BULLSHIT. >The two signs are identical except for that last linear segment. > >What changes to make that second segment different is the position of the >articulators. Articulators is a linguistish word for all the stuff we use >to make language; vocal cords tongues, faces, fingers, hands, ...all that. >So the job is to describe those articulators. In signed languages, you >can take a picture. Or draw one; then you can make it real schematic so >it just has what you need and no distracting junk. That's what >SignWriting symbols do. But with speech--hooo, boy!--how do you make a >picture of an ...uuu...sound? Or any sound? Ya can't! James put his >finger on it when he said that it was harder to change from an aural to a >visual mode. >In order to represent speech on paper you gotta make up some arbitrary >symbols, and have them arbitrarily stand for .the sounds. SignWriting, on >the other hand, isn't arbitrary. > >Actually, you could draw pictures of the vocal tract--the articulators of >speech--and show gross little tongues and vocal cords and stuff, but >nobody ever wanted to. (except I think it's kinda fun) Instead, linguists >describe things in terms of parameters; it's more precise. For example >they describe a spoken consonant sound by where the tongue is, what it >does, and whether or not the vocal cords vibrate. Those three things are >what's important in telling consonants apart (in speech). We call 'em >parameters. > >Every unit of language has certain parameters. The three above are Place, >Manner, and Voicing. Obviously, signed languages have a little different >parameters since they've got different articulators, but it's the same >idea; parameters for signed consonants are Location, Handshape, >Orientation, and Facial Expression. > >Each parameter is a set (like in math) of a certain number of "features." >Voicing is easy, there's only two; voiced or voiceless. Location, for >speech, is the five or six places where you can put your tongue, from the >back of the throat to the teeth; but in sign language there's gobs of >Places. So anyhow, we pick one Feature for Location and one for each of >the other Parameters, and that's how we describe a linguistic unit. All >this info is written down in a big complicated grid with all the features >listed one way and the time segments the other way. They take up a lot of >space and they're awful to read. > >Each bundle of features makes up a phoneme, which could be from German, or >ASL, or whatever. But it couldn't be Chinese, cuz each Chinese character >stands for a whole word, not just a phoneme. Totally different from an >alphabet where each character stands for a complete feature bundle. Also >different from SignWriting where the characters mostly stand for >individual features, like [bent thumb] or [brows up]. What's cool is that >when you look at a SignWriting symbol you can see all the little features >without having to deal with those huge, complex, technical feature grids. >And as James pointed out, evidently without ever having to sit through a >lot of boring grammar lessons. (like this one). > > >_______________________________________ >Joe Martin, Plain Old Ordinary Student >Top Left Corner USA > | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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