Re: Natural Order of Events

David J. Peterson wrote:
> Gary:
> <<
> dog man jumps-over
> man dog jumps-over
>
> I seem to want to read those as:
>
> dog TOPIC; man jumps-over (COMMENT)
> man TOPIC; dog jumps-over (COMMENT)
>  >>
>
> That's precisely how they would be interpreted in ASL (though,
> of course, the comment would need to be accompanied by raised
> eyebrows).
As PATIENT AGENT VERB.

About a month back I read Margalit Fox's "Talking Hands" in which she
gives an account of the sign language of Al-Sayid. Unless my memory is
really failing, I seem to recall that PATIENT-AGENT-VERB was a common
word order.
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David J. Peterson wrote:
 > One immediate problem with this study comes to mind.
 > Admittedly, we only have four examples, but these are they:
 >
 > (1) Agent = Boy; Patient = Glass; Action = Tilts to mouth
 > (2) Agent = Captain; Patient = Pail; Action = Swings
 > (3) Agent = Woman; Patient = Knob; Action = Twists
 > (4) Agent = Girl; Patient = Hat; Action = Puts on
 >
 > So...  Anyone else notice anything about the animacy of the
 > agents?  And the patients?  And the actions involving the
 > two?  And how no matter what order you put these in, the
 > result probably won't be ambiguous?

Precisely! I must admit I was somewhat 'underwhelmed' by the article. It
seemed somewhat superficial to me and its statement "Al-Sayyid Bedouin
Sign Language arose within the last 70 years in an isolated community
with a high incidence of profound prelingual deafness. In the space of
one generation, the language assumed grammatical structure, including
the SOV order" did not concur with what I had understood from Margalit
Fox's book.

I know too little less than I would like to about sign languages. But
from what I understand:
- sign languages are real _languages_ with systematic grammar and are
different from the sort of gesturing one might use, say, in charades.
- the PATIENT-AGENT-VERB word order seems (but I may be wrong) to be
common in the Al-Sayid SL and in ASL.

--
Ray
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