Sign Language Lessons: ASL 2 – Unit 1 Sample

July 17, 2023

In this unit sample of the online sign language lessons, you will be learning more sentence types.

Conversation 2.1

Read this outline, and then watch the conversation in action in the video below. Try to recognize what is being said. Watch the video again until you can follow the conversation without the outline.

A: (get-attention) TOMORROW ME GO PICK-up NEW BOOK ME BUY YOU DO-YOU-MIND ME BORROW YOUR TRUCK?
“Tomorrow I’m going to pick up some new books I just bought. Do you mind if I borrow your truck?”

B: TIME WHAT?
“What time?”

A: TIME 10 “give-or-take”
“Around 10:00.”

B: TOMORROW MORNING CONFLICT MECHANIC COME FIX MY TRUCK. (TOMORROW AFTERNOON?)y/n)
“Tomorrow morning won’t work. The mechanic is coming to fix my truck. What about tomorrow afternoon?”

A: FINE. (YOU TIME-2 TOMORROW FINE YOU?)y/n)
“That’s fine. Would 2:00 work for you?”

B: SURE-SURE FINE
“Sure. That would be fine.”

A: OK.
“Okay.”

Conversation 2.1 Explained

The two most common ways to get someone’s attention in the Deaf community are (1) Wave your hand in the person’s train of vision or (2) Tap the person on the shoulder. In this conversation, Signer A waves her hand in Signer B’s train of vision to get her attention.

Signer A signs the DO-YOU-MIND sign in this conversation very quickly. This sign is normally signed closer to your nose. She could have also signed DO-YOU-MIND without signing YOU first since YOU is implied in the DO-YOU-MIND sign.

B: TOMORROW MORNING CONFLICT MECHANIC COME FIX MY TRUCK. (TOMORROW AFTERNOON?)y/n)
“Tomorrow morning won’t work. The mechanic is coming to fix my truck. What about tomorrow afternoon?”

In this section, Signer B uses the CONFLICT sign along with negative facial expressions to show that she has a conflict at that time.

Also note that when signing TOMORROW AFTERNOON, Signer B uses the yes/no question facial expression to ask this sentence as a question to Signer A.

Sentence Types

There are a few different sentence types in ASL. We will be discussing Topicalized Statements, Topicalized “Wh” Questions, Rhetorical Questions, and Conditional Sentences. These sentence types are not the same as word order you learned about in ASL 1. Word order shows the order in which you can sign your words. Sentence types show how to use word order along with non-manual markers to form certain types of sentences.

Topicalized Statements (t)

Topicalization

When you use the “object” part of the sentence as the topic of the sentence (OSV word order), this is called topicalization. The facial expression used for the “object” part of the sentence differs from the rest of the sentence. This creates a “passive voice” instead of the “active voice” that is used with SVO structure.

Topicalized Statements (t)

Non-Manual Markers:

Raise your eyebrows for the “topic” part of the sentence
Then make a neutral, affirmative, or negative declarative statement for the “comment” part of the sentence

Topicalized Statement Examples

Watch examples of topicalized statements in the sentences below:

Examples:

(MY FATHER)t), (THAT MAN)aff)
(“That man is my dad”)
(FATHER)t), (MOTHER LOVE)aff)
(“Mother loves father”)
(THAT KEY)t), ME (FINALLY)”pah”) FIND
(“I finally found that key”)
(THAT DRAWING)t), (ME DRAW)aff)
(“I drew that drawing”)

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