Editing American Sign Language (section)

=== Morphology ===
ASL has a rich system of verbal [[inflection]], which involves both [[grammatical aspect]]: how the action of verbs flows in time—and [[agreement (linguistics)|agreement]] marking.<ref name="bahan"/>{{rp|27–28}} Aspect can be marked by changing the manner of movement of the verb; for example, [[continuous aspect]] is marked by incorporating rhythmic, circular movement, while punctual aspect is achieved by modifying the sign so that it has a stationary hand position.<ref name="bahan"/>{{rp|27–28}} Verbs may agree with both the [[grammatical subject|subject]] and the [[grammatical object|object]], and are marked for [[grammatical number|number]] and reciprocity.<ref name="bahan"/>{{rp|28}} Reciprocity is indicated by using two one-handed signs; for example, the sign SHOOT, made with an L-shaped handshape with inward movement of the thumb, inflects to SHOOT<sub>[reciprocal]</sub>, articulated by having two L-shaped hands "shooting" at each other.<ref name="bahan"/>{{rp|29}}

ASL has a productive system of [[Classifier constructions in sign languages|classifiers]], which are used to classify objects and their movement in space.<ref name="bahan"/>{{rp|26}} For example, a rabbit running downhill would use a classifier consisting of a bent V classifier handshape with a downhill-directed path; if the rabbit is hopping, the path is executed with a bouncy manner.<ref name="bahan"/>{{rp|26}} In general, classifiers are composed of a "classifier handshape" [[bound morpheme|bound]] to a "movement root".<ref name="bahan"/>{{rp|26}} The classifier handshape represents the object as a whole, incorporating such attributes as surface, depth, and shape, and is usually very iconic.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Valli|Lucas|2000|p=86}}</ref> The movement root consists of a path, a direction and a manner.<ref name="bahan"/>{{rp|26}}

In linguistics, there are two primary ways of changing the form of a word: derivation and inflection. Derivation involves creating new words by adding something to an existing word, while inflection involves changing the form of a word to convey grammatical information without altering its fundamental meaning or category.

For example, adding the suffix "-ship" to the noun "friend" creates the new word "friendship", which has a different meaning than the original word. Inflection, on the other hand, involves modifying a word's form to indicate grammatical features such as tense, number, gender, person, case, and degree of comparison.

In American Sign Language (ASL), inflection is conveyed through facial expressions, body movements, and other non-manual markers. For instance, to indicate past tense in ASL, one might sign the present tense of a verb (such as "walk"), and then add a facial expression and head tilt to signify that the action occurred in the past (i.e., "walked").

According to the book Linguistics of American Sign Language, ASL signs have two main components: hold segments and movement segments. Hold segments consist of hand-shape, location, orientation, and non-manual features, while movement segments possess similar features.

Morphology is the study of how languages form words by using smaller units to construct larger units. The smallest meaningful unit in a language is known as a "morpheme", with some morphemes able to stand alone as independent units (free morphemes), while others must occur with other morphemes (bound morphemes).

For example, the plural "-s" and third person "-s" in English are bound morphemes. In ASL, the 3 handshape in signs like THREE-WEEKS and THREE-MONTHS are also bound morphemes.

Affixes, which are morphemes added to words to create new words or modify their meanings, are part of the derivational process. For example, in English, prefixes like "re-" and suffixes like "-able" are affixes. In ASL, affixation can be used to modify the sign for CHAIR to indicate different types of chairs. The inflectional process, on the other hand, adds grammatical information to existing units.

By studying morphemes and how they can be combined or modified, linguists gain insight into the underlying structure of language and the creative ways in which it can be used to express meaning. Understanding morphology is essential to understanding how languages are built and how new signs or words can be formed.

Furthermore, understanding morphology has practical applications in language learning and teaching. For example, teaching students the basic morphological structures of a language can help them to better understand the language's grammar and syntax, and can also aid in their acquisition of new vocabulary.

In summary, morphology is an essential component of language and provides valuable insights into the structure and function of languages. By understanding the morphological processes involved in language formation, we can gain a deeper understanding of how languages work and how they can be effectively taught and learned.

==== Fingerspelling ====
{{main|Fingerspelling}}
[[File:Asl alphabet gallaudet.svg|thumb|upright=1.1|right|alt=chart of letters in the American manual alphabet, with Latin script equivalents|The American manual alphabet and numbers]]
American Sign Language possesses a set of 26 signs known as the [[American manual alphabet]], which can be used to spell out words from the English language.<ref name="cxxiv">{{Harvcoltxt|Costello|2008|p=xxiv}}</ref> It is rather a representation of the English alphabet, and not a unique alphabet of ASL, although commonly labeled as the "ASL alphabet".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sign language alphabets |url=https://www.handspeak.com/learn/212/ |access-date=2024-02-21 |website=www.handspeak.com}}</ref> It is borrowed from French Sign Language (LSF), as much of ASL is derived from LSF.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-10-29 |title=What Is American Sign Language (ASL)? {{!}} NIDCD |url=https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/american-sign-language |access-date=2024-02-21 |website=www.nidcd.nih.gov |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-23 |title=The Many Languages of Sign Language |url=https://www.littlepassports.com/blog/world-community/the-many-languages-of-sign-language/ |access-date=2024-02-21 |website=Little Passports |language=en-US}}</ref> Such signs make use of the 19 handshapes of ASL. For example, the signs for 'p' and 'k' use the same handshape but different orientations. A common misconception is that ASL consists only of fingerspelling; although such a method ([[Rochester Method]]) has been used, it is not ASL.<ref name="cxxv">{{Harvcoltxt|Costello|2008|p=xxv}}</ref>

Fingerspelling is a form of [[borrowing (linguistics)|borrowing]], a linguistic process wherein words from one language are incorporated into another.<ref name="cxxv" /> In ASL, fingerspelling is used for [[proper nouns]] and for technical terms with no native ASL equivalent.<ref name="cxxv" /> There are also some other loan words which are fingerspelled, either very short English words or abbreviations of longer English words, e.g. ''O-N'' from English 'on', and ''A-P-T'' from English 'apartment'.<ref name="cxxv" /> Fingerspelling may also be used to emphasize a word that would normally be signed otherwise.<ref name="cxxv" />