Meaning?

stormpraiser91

stormpraiser91

New Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2011
Messages
41
Reaction score
0
How would you explain "cha" and "pah" to a hearing person who's an ASL beginner?
 
"Cha" is the mouth morpheme that accompanies classifiers indicating an object is a large size. Examples: the size of a dog, a stack of paperwork to be done, a tree that fell.

"Pah" indicates or emphasizes finally, success at something particular. Examples: passing a test, winning a competition, getting a promotion, winning a dispute.
 
"Cha" is what you mouth to indicate that something is very large (as in volume). There are different adverbials used to indicate height ("tah") and distance ("fah"). "Pah" is commonly used with the sign for SUCCESS and could be interpreted as "Finally!". While it is coupled with other signs, I can't think of them at the moment.

Edit: Ah, man, Reba beat me to the punch! lol
 
Last edited:
Mountain Man said:
"Cha" is what you mouth to indicate that something is very large (as in volume). There are different adverbials used to indicate height ("tah") and distance ("fah"). "Pah" is most commonly used with the sign for SUCCESS and could be interpreted as "Finally!". While it is coupled with other signs, I can't think of them at the moment.

Edit: Ah, man, Reba beat me to the punch! lol
Click to expand...
I just type faster. :lol:
 
stormpraiser91 said:
What does morpheme mean?
Click to expand...

It means the smallest meaningful unit in a language.


For example: the word "break" has just one morpheme (it cannot be broken down into smaller units or meanings) but "unbreakable" has three morphemes: un/break/able.

Another example: "dog" has just one morpheme but "dogs" has two - dog/s - the "s" being a plural marker.
 
oh. how do you use it? would you mouth pah and then sign success, or after the sign, or at the same time?
 
stormpraiser91 said:
oh. how do you use it? would you mouth pah and then sign success, or after the sign, or at the same time?
Click to expand...

The Pah! itself is the sign. It is a morpheme. You would sign BOOK READ ME FINISH, and then mouth "Pah!"
 
Check out this site:

By "mouth morpheme" I'm talking about a type of facial grammar employed by ASL. This facial grammar can be used to show size or manner. For example, you might notice that when talking about something huge, skilled ASL signers might make a mouth movement that looks as if they were pronouncing the letters "cha." When describing something that is very thin or small they use a mouth morpheme that looks as if they are pronouncing the letters "oo."

American Sign Language (ASL)
 
Reba said:
Check out this site:

By "mouth morpheme" I'm talking about a type of facial grammar employed by ASL. This facial grammar can be used to show size or manner. For example, you might notice that when talking about something huge, skilled ASL signers might make a mouth movement that looks as if they were pronouncing the letters "cha." When describing something that is very thin or small they use a mouth morpheme that looks as if they are pronouncing the letters "oo."

American Sign Language (ASL)
Click to expand...

Another name for these is adverbials.
 
Back
Top