Myth: ASL is Ungrammatical

Word-for-word translations from one language to another often result in ungrammatical or meaningless sentences. This can be illustrated by translating the following French sentences.

1. Il fait chaud.
   It makes warm.*
   (It is warm.)**
   
   
2. Est-ce qu'il vient d'arriver?
   Is it that he comes to arrive?*
   (Has he just arrived? )**
   
   
3. Tu me manques.
   You me miss.*
   (I miss you.)**

Consider the word-for-word translations of each French sentence: the word-for-word translation of the first sentence is ungrammatical, of the second sentence is meaningless, and the word-for-word translation of the third sentence suggests the wrong meaning, "You miss me."

On the basis of these examples, it would be foolish to suggest that the French language is ungrammatical. Although the French and English sentences are different in their choice of words and in their word order, both are correct according to their own grammars. These differences are expected because each language has a unique way of referring to objects and events in the real world based on its particular vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Languages differ also in other important ways, such as how they express politeness, humor, irony, and poetry.

A grammar describes how a language works, how it is put together. The opinion that ASL is ungrammatical, or that it lacks a grammar, usually results from a sign-for-word translation of ASL into English. It is based on the assumption that ASL must be structured exactly like English. This assumption is false since ASL is an independent language. It has its own vocabulary, its own grammar, and both are unrelated to English.

There are, however, some speakers of English who assume that ASL must follow the rules of their language in order to be grammatical. To support their claim, sign-for-word translations are used to show that ASL lacks a grammar or that it is "broken English." Based on these translations, "deficiencies" are pointed out. As an example, consider this sign sentence: TOUCH FINISH SAN FRANCISCO YOU? (An appropriate English translation is, "Have you been to San Francisco?")

Careful analysis of ASL grammar does show that it differs from English grammar. ASL does not follow English word order and it lacks, or it makes limited use of, some grammatical features present in English, for example, articles, the verb "to be," prepositions and conjunctions, the passive voice, inflections for tense, person, and number. Yet, as is the case with the French sentences translated word-for-word earlier, the aforementioned ASL sentence is perfectly grammatical.

The important issue here is to deal directly with the particular language under scrutiny. In English, word order is very important, as can be illustrated by the difference in the meaning of these two sentences:
     The dog bit the boy.
     The boy bit the dog.
Some languages, including Latin, have a flexible word order. The grammatical relationship, for instance, the grammatical subject or object of the sentence, is indicated in these languages by affixes. There are many languages that have no articles. Russian, Japanese, and Hindi are a few examples. The verb "to be" does not exist or has limited usage in languages such as Hebrew, Hungarian, and Russian. The Thai language functions without a passive construction. Navajo has three or four ways of expressing the passive.

English itself lacks grammatical categories found in other spoken languages, but no one argues that it is deficient or ungrammatical for that reason. English nouns and adjectives retain their form, unchanged, regardless of the grammatical role they play in a sentence. In the Finnish language, nouns and adjectives have fourteen different forms, depending on their grammatical function in the sentence; in Latin, nouns and adjectives have six different forms. English distinguishes between singular and plural nouns, for example, the boy as opposed to the boys. Hebrew makes an additional distinction with a "dual" category for things that come in pairs, like hands. Other languages have still more features which do not exist in English. No one assumes that these different features must occur in English.

It is certainly true that ASL does not have some of the features found in English. English on the other hand, does not make use of such features as location and directionality which indicate grammatical relationships in ASL. Grammatical relations in any language signal a difference in meaning so that these two features play a critical role in ASL. Since ASL consists of movements made in space, signers refer to particular people or things by pointing, or by shifting their eyes to a specific point in space. Several locations can be established and may remain for the rest of the conversation. The following sentence illustrates the general rules which govern the grammatical feature of location:
Bob insulted John and then he hit him.

In English, one cannot be sure whether the he refers to Bob or John. The equivalent sentence in ASL makes it clear whether it was Bob or John who did the hitting because the sign for he would be made in the location which would specifically indicate the correct person.

Directionality, the second feature identified above, also makes use of space for grammatical purposes. For example, the notions of "subject" and "object" can be included in some verb signs by moving from the location of the "doer" (subject) to that of the "receiver of the action." Consequently, the sentence HE SHOWS ME is executed through use of a single sign - SHOW.

These two drawings illustrate unique features of ASL -
directionality and simultaneous encoding of information.

Looking again at the sign SHOW, we find another important feature of ASL - the simultaneous encoding of elements of information. In ASL, information is included within the sign. Thus the distinction between I SHOW YOU and YOU SHOW ME is an internal inflection, indicated by the direction in which the sign SHOW is made. In English, the same information is encoded successively by the order of the words. Internal inflections do occur in English, although infrequently. These inflections are obvious in the contrast between man and men or swim and swam.

As this discussion shows, a grammatical analysis can only be made from within a language by someone who knows it like a native, or else with the assistance of natives who provide their knowledge of that language. Word-for-word and sign-for-word translations are misleading; they do not provide the information necessary for analyzing the structure of the language that has been translated.