Sentence Structure

Overview

Our goal in this section is in no way to prescribe a grammar of American Sign Language (ASL) or any other signed language, but merely to provide a road map for users to understand our usage of ASL in the construction of definitions for the Main ASL Dictionary. We feel it is our responsibility to describe our methodology and, in doing so, invite necessary feedback, which will ultimately make our definitions clearer and more accurate.

In writing each definition, we have worked to strike a balance between writing an amount prose that provides sufficient information about a concept and an amount of prose that keeps the definitions from being confusing. This is motivated by our use of a newly developed writing system, and we anticipate the task of reading ASL prose to be a challenge for the average user. As a result, comprehension of definitions is expected to be more challenging, which motivates our desire to restrict the length of definitions. In this way, our hope is to produce accurate definitions that are clear and simple for users to fully digest and utilize the content of the SLD website, and eventually provide feedback for improving it.

Clause Structure

In our writing system, clause-initial and clause-final boundaries are marked differently using the following conventions.

As a first example, consider the following ASL construction:

Here, the signer begins by locating the first clause on the signer's dominant side in an outwards space, which is marked by [-J]. Since this is also the start of the construction, the first word begins with a capital [V]. The second clause begins on the signer's non-dominant side in an inwards space, which is marked with [-T]. This clause continues to the end of the construction, which is marked with a period [.].

As a second example, consider the following ASL construction:

Here, the signer begins the first clause in the neutral space (see Liddell 2003, 9). The capital [F] marks the beginning of the construction. The end of this clause is marked with the comma [,], and the following clause continues to the end of the construction marked with a question mark [?].

Buoys or Remanent Signs

In discourse, fluent signers will often articulate a word where, upon completion, the non-dominant hand is held in a stationary configuration, maintaining an entire or partial handshape, orientation, and location, while the dominant hand continues signing. We punctuate the start of such stationary configurations, or holding, with the double-dash [=], which is placed following the word that produced it. If instead the dominant hand were held and the non-dominant hand continued signing, then a backslash would be placed immediately after the double-dash [=/]. We punctuate the end of the holding with a dash [-], which is placed following the last word during which the hold was maintained.

As a first example, consider the following ASL construction:

Here, the word lévfate-fja-fjv produces the handshape [vfa] on the non-dominant hand and is held while the words báai-fja-fjl luéte-st are signed separately with the dominant hand up to the end of the construction.

For another example, consider the following ASL construction:

Here, the word sfate=fuj is signed with both hands producing [sfa] on the non-dominant hand. This handshape is held on the non-dominant while the dominant hand is used to sign the words fluátest-a séia-bxé-vléak-sléia léia-ie after which the non-dominant handshape is released so that both hands are able to sign the word léfeakbj-j to end the sentence.

Switching Hand Dominance

In discourse, fluent signers may sometimes fully alternate their hand dominance, such that what is considered the dominant hand in one or more words may switch between the left or right hand once or repeatedly. Sometimes referred to as dominance reversal or manual simultaneity in linguistics literature, we mark the left-right switching of hand dominance with the forward slash [/].

When a signer's hand dominance is switched for a single word, a forward slash is added as a prefix on the front of the word. For example, consider the following ASL construction:

Here, luéte-st huéitwi-zsj huéitui-zsj fáakI-ri fuit-o-fj is signed with a given hand dominance chosen by the signer. The dominance is switched to sign the one word sfáat-zsj after which then signer switches back to sign féie-a léia-ui-gi féia-a.

For another example, consider the following ASL construction:

In this construction, the signer begins by signing fáie-a léie-a with the dominant hand alone. Then the signer switches dominance to sign the word vcéia-it, switches dominance back to sign fáie-a léie-a, switches dominance again to sign the word yfáte-a-tk, and finally switches dominance back to use the starting hand to sign the word lfategt-i at the end of the construction.

Conversely, when the hand dominance is switched for a string of two or more words, the forward slash is written separately by itself preceding the start of the string. We then terminate the end of that string by another forward slash [/], for which the following words are understood to be produced with the signer's original hand dominance.