This was sent to me by email from Berry here at AllDeaf. He has given me permission to share this on the forum.
You can solve a lot of ASL syntax problems, if not most, using five simple tricks.
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First: Learn to start at the beginning. In English the speaker often puts what they feel to be most important first, no matter where it occurs in time.
"I went to the store after I ate breakfast and drank my coffee."
In ASL you start at the beginning.
>> Breakfast eat. Coffee drink. Store go.
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Second: Once again the English speaker puts what they feel to be the most important thing first and the next most important piece of information last and miscellaneous information in between. Speakers of English will tend to feel these really are the important things.
However it is interesting to note that every language differs on the things it (and its speakers) considers important. Ownership is very important in English and stressed at every opportunity while in Spanish you do not say “My arm” you say “The arm”. And there is at least one language native to the Americas where it is considered improper to use the word “I”. Thus you would say “This man,” or “This woman” and speak of yourself in the third person. In English speaking of yourself in the third person is considered immature.
ASL has its own priorities. In English you say,
"The wedding took place in a small church in Pittsburgh."
In ASL you start with the largest item and work down to the smallest.
>> Pittsburgh small-church wedding finish.
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Third: In English it is often difficult to figure out exactly what is being talked about. Often what the speaker thinks is the most important thing is not treated the same in ASL. English always tends to treat the person who does the action as though they are the most important element --
"She held the small white gloves close to her chest."
In ASL it is easy. It is the first thing talked about -- It is the topic and it starts the sentence. The person being discussed is placed further down the chain of importance.
>> Gloves, small, white, held-close-to-chest (one sign) she (If it is not already understood who is being talked about.)
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Fourth: In English in order to construct a proper sentence you constantly have to refer to time (using tense, past, present, future) place, and person, in each sentence. English is one of the most repetitive languages in the world. It repeats information over and over again.
"He walked slowly down the hill. It was steep and he did not want to hurt himself. He carefully watched where he stepped."
In ASL once you establish time, for instance in the sentence above it is the past, it remains the same time (Say yesterday) until you change it.
You don't need to keep using time indicator such as "ed" "was" "did".
And the person you are talking about remains the same until you change them, and the place remains the same until you change it. Thus you don't need to keep referring to "him, he, his".
Nor do you have to refer back to the place, in this case the hill, with the pronoun "it". It does not matter how long you talk about them or how many "sentences" you use.
“Hill he walk (show slow careful walking with the sign "walk") Hurt want not. Use the sign "see" with both hands to show how he watched.
As you can see 7 signs and 1 head shake replace all the words in English, five of which are pronouns.
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Fifth: Remember that you don't have "I" this and "I" that in ASL. It is assumed you are talking about yourself unless or until you specify otherwise.
Other people may have other methods. These are the ones I always found most helpful.
