Date: Wed Jan 13, 1999 8:18
pm Subject: Re: actors
Hi there,
I don't know much of ASL, but for me the signs you described seem not so
much to be compounds rather than words with a suffix (or infix or whatever)
which is a bound morpheme (i.e. which cannot occur all by itself).
But Joe is right - it is getting quite linguistically in here... :-)
In german sign language we have something very similar for negation; some
kind of 'alpha'-movement adds the negation to the actual sign. It cannot be
produced all by itself but as far as I know when it occurs it always means
negation.
Best,
Susanne
Universit�t Hamburg
Institut f�r Deutsche Geb�rdensprache und Kommunikation Geh�rloser
University of Hamburg
Institute of German Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf
Binderstr. 34
20146 Hamburg - Germany
Tel.: ++49-40-4123-6734
Gesch�ftszimmer: ++49-40-4123-6737
ST: ++49-40-4123-6738
Fax: ++49-40-4123-6109
Cecelia Smith wrote:
>ahhh, you picked a good one here.
>DON'T KNOW DON'T LIKE DON'T WANT DON'T CARE
>
>Those four signs, which require two English words to gloss, are very
>interesting to me morphologically.
>
>The first three start with a part of an actual sign (KNOW, LIKE, WANT) And
>are negated by a specific movement that brings in negation. DON'T CARE does
>not have that readily identifiable part (CARE) but still has the negation
>part. What is that thing on the nose mean? CARE???? I don't think so.
>But the whole sign means "DON'T CARE" ... HMMMmmmmmm interesting
>
>Are they compounds? I think so. But what about DON'T CARE -- what is that
>from? And what is the negation thing.. that is ONLY found in these limited
>signs. (if you know of any others, let me know. I'd really like to find
>more).
>
>Sometimes, I think the negation part of these signs must be a remnant left
>from a much earlier version of the Sign Language we use... much like the
>prefix "luke" as in "lukewarm" What is luke? And it is ONLY found when
>describing temperature, and then only with a level of warm. And then there is
>still "DON'T CARE"
>
>Also notice that the negation is specifically identified to mean DON'T ..
>which is itself a compound of meaning Do and Not ..... can we
>complicate things more?
>
>But your question... was are they 2 signs. No. A compound in Sign Language
>is not two signs anymore than a compound in English is two words. They are
>produced as one unit, that's what makes them a compound. Like the English
>word "cupboard" is a compound of cup and board, and is pronounced more like
>"kabird" and not "cup-board"
>
>======
>
>another 2 cents. Can you tell I'm avoiding doing housework?
>
>Cecelia Smith (~_~)
>(who read her last message and remembered the concept of Spell Check)
>
>
>In a message dated 1/10/99 5:12:06 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>writes:
>
>> You guys are going to educate me despite myself.
>>
>> So then "don't know" in sign language is two symbols?
>>
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