On Mon, 2009-07-13 at 13:25 -0400, Alex Fink wrote:


I will have to take a closer look at your paper. I'm sure there are
things that I missed which you have address. I just think this is bound
to run into the same problems all attempts at writing down ASL have come
across. And true that we don't write down every little part of speech
down (tone of voice, body language etc). But I think English is far less
dependent on those. Body language and facial expressions and eye gaze
are an integral part of grammar in ASL and must be given due weight.

>
> I asked Sai about this once and ISTR what he told me agrees with Lee more:
> aside from referents which are visible or otherwise bound to their location
> by more abiding conventions than just the pronoun assignments of this
> exchange, speakers only use a handful of index positions; four would be a lot.
>
I think over 4 is used in a typical native conversation quite regularly.
I randomly looked for a vlog to see if I could count locations used. I
came across this one.
http://www.joeybaer.com/?p=183

I didn't take the time to write a transcript or anything, but just
haphazardly I tried to write down all of the established locations. I'm
sure there are more but these are that I could quickly pick out.
There is of course "You" and "Me", which are kinda generic, but still do
hold a place in space.
Then there is:
The main topic of the vlog the workshop lower right of signer
To the right of the workshop are the hearing participants
Lower left of the signer are the Deaf participants
Upper right (above workshop) the workshop presenter.
Lower left out front a bit the singled out Deaf person asked a question

There is also the workshop coordinator which is not indexed but role
shifted into. But enough location is provided for them that we know they
exist to the upper right next to the signer. They could have been
pointed to, but where not in the vlog.


Now I know you may think I'm making ASL sound magical and adding indexes
that don't need to be there, or aren't actually present. But this signer
does actually index them, and maintain verb agreement throughout. (ie.
the work "insult" is inflected correctly at the workshop presenter,
"information" signed correctly flowing to the Deaf participants)

Keep in mind this is just a regular vlog not meant to exaggerate the use
of space in ASL.

> Incidentally: I suppose it's standard in the community to call this family
> of signs simply "classifiers"? Sai does this too. I think it's an
> unfortunate use of terminology -- as I think of it the presence of
> classifiers itself isn't really much to note at all, they're just noun
> classes, and I'd rather restrict "classifier" to the handshape; it's the
> fact that you can represent all these kinds of motion iconically and
> nondiscretely and do whatever you want that's the exceptional thing. Oh well.
>

Yeah Classifies are what they are called. Doesn't even begin to describe
them, but that is what they are called in the community.