Adverbial Morphemes in Tactile ASL - Gallaudet University

PDE – Steven D. Collins
Findings and Interpretations
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4.1.6.2. Example Two (Place/Position/Direction)
Gloss from Transcription:
K-R-O-W-N / IX-lf WILL SHOW-YOU DON’T HAVE-TO++ CL: Y “move
handset from –lf to –rt” / LEAVE BECAUSE CONNECT #WIRE IX-lf CL: I
“wire moved to -rt” FROM // (interrupted) B-R-A-I-L-L-E-H-P-H-O-N-E CL:
I “wire moved to –rt”
English Translation:
Krown. I’ll show you. You don’t have to move the handset from the tty. You
just leave it there because it’s connected by a wire to the BraillePhone.
Visual ASL:
In visual ASL, the sign FROM uses a non-manual facial expression of an eye
gaze at the same time as the sign is indexing to the BraillePhone. It is not
explicitly signed.
Tactile ASL:
In Tactile ASL, FROM, must be signed because a Deaf-Blind individual
cannot observe the eye gaze non-manual facial expression.
Analysis of Variation:
The primary difference in this example is the necessity of explicitly signing the
adverb FROM in the Tactile ASL production to compensate for the inability
of a Deaf-Blind individual to observe the facial expression and eye gaze.
Comments:
Here the adverb FROM is used to make clear the direction. It is accompanied
with eye gaze to show direction.
4.1.6.3. Summary (Place/Position/Direction)
This series of examples of adverbs of the type place/position/direction demonstrates that
one of the features that characterizes many of the Tactile ASL variations of the sign is the use of
an additional signed word in order to make the context clear. Here again, we see redundancy in
the content as a way of reducing ambiguity.
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