3 - Pronouns and real space

Summary

One of the key articulatory differences between spoken and signed languages lies in the mobility and visibility of the hands. While vocal articulators such as the tongue, the glottis, and the velum are limited to largely unseen movements within the vocal tract, the hands are capable of making intricate, visible, spatial distinctions. Sign languages exploit this capability by allowing signs to be directed and placed in space meaningfully.

Directing pronouns toward physically present entities is a common feature of ASL discourse. Pronouns can be directed toward the signer, the addressee, others present, or toward other things in the signer's environment. I begin with physically present entities because their visibility makes it possible to observe with a fair degree of precision what signers do when directing pronouns.

Beginning here I will use a straight superscript arrow (^→) to indicate that a sign is directed toward a single entity. I will also identify the entity the sign is directed toward immediately after the arrow. Thus, PRO^→a symbolizes the non-first person singular pronoun directed toward entity a. In order to talk about general characteristics of the sign, letters toward the end of the alphabet such as x and y will be used as variables while a, b, and c will be used to symbolize specific entities. Thus, PRO^→x symbolizes the pronoun as an abstract grammatical unit and PRO^→a symbolizes its use in a specific instance where it is directed toward some entity a.