The syntax of lexical units, or signs, of American Sign Language (ASL) is analyzed. Previous areas of study concerning pauses, functional sentence perspective, theme and rheme, and topic and comment are discussed. A model is offered to depict topic-comment relationships in ASL using space, vectors, and relationship rules. (SW)

Analysis of the performance of beginning American Sign Language students, who had only recently learned the manual alphabet, on a task in which proactive interference would build up rapidly on successive trials, supported the view that different languages have separate memory stores. (Author/CB)

Linguistics retains from its antecedents, philology and the study of sacred writings, some of their apologetic and theological bias. Thus it has not been able to face squarely the question how linguistic function may have evolved from animal communication. Chimpanzees' use of signs from American Sign Language forces re-examination of language…

Charles A. Ferguson's concept of "diglossia" (1959, 1964) is used in analyzing sign language. As in Haitian Creole or Swiss German, "two or more varieties" of sign language are "used by the same speakers under different conditions"--these are here called "High" (H) sign language and "Low" (L) sign language. H sign language is formally taught…

Twenty-one nonverbal autistic children, 4- to 9-years-old, with language ages of 4- to 24-months, participated in the communication learning program from 1 to 3 years. Simultaneous verbal and manual signs were chosen as the communications mode. The children initially displayed infrequent, unrecognizable vocalizations (Screeches, or vocal…

This book is written primarily for those studying linguistic topics in the area of sign language, but also can be useful to sign language teachers who want to understand more about American Sign Language (ASL). Pen-and-ink illustrations allow the reader with no knowledge of sign language to follow the discussion. The hypothesis examined in this…