Part 11 (2/2)

Apart frons and language, it is to be expected that analogies can by proper research be ascertained between their several developraenesis of the sentence The science of language, ever henceforward to be studied historically, must take account of the similar early inated, both in sign and oral utterance In this respect, as in many others, the North A representatives of prehistoric man

SYNTAX

The reader will understand without explanation that there is in the gesture speech no organized sentence such as is integrated in the languages of civilization, and that he must not look for articles or particles or passive voice or case or graes as a substantive or a verb, as a subject or a predicate, or as qualifiers or inflexions The sign radicals, without being specifically any of our parts of speech,and sequence of the ideographic pictures, an arrangens in connected succession, which may be classed under the scholastic head of syntax This subject, with special reference to the order of deaf-ns as compared with oral speech, has been the theme of much discussion, some notes of which, condensed from the speculations of M Reraph without further comment than may invite attention to the profound remark of LEIBNITZ

In mimic construction there are to be considered both the order in which the signs succeed one another and the relative positions in which they are er in the e may sometin picture without co from the same point So the order, as in Greek and Latin, is very variable

In nations a whom the alphabet was introduced without the inter, the order being (1) language of signs, ale, and (3) alphabetic writing, men would write in the order in which they had been accustoe was still rudiurative writing had been invented, the order of the figures would be the order of the signs, and the sae Hence LEIBNITZ says truly that ”the writing of the Chinese ht seee has not known the phases which have given to the Indo-European tongues their forns were conquered by speech, while in the fore cannot show by inflection the reciprocal dependence of words and sentences Degrees ofwith vocal intonation are only used rhetorically or for degrees of comparison

The relations of ideas and objects are therefore expressed by placement, and their connection is established when necessary by the abstraction of ideas The sign talker is an artist, grouping persons and things so as to show the relations between them, and the effect is that which is seen in a picture But though the artist has the advantage in presenting in a perns, he can only present it as it appears at a single n talker has the succession of time at his disposal, and his scenes enificant

It is not satisfactory to give the order of equivalent words as representative of the order of signs, because the pictorial arrange this expedient as a mere illustration of the sequence in the presentation of signs by deaf- is quoted from an essay by Rev JR Keep, in _American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb_, vol xvi, p 223, as the order in which the parable of the Prodigal Son is translated into signs:

”Once, er say, Father property your divide: part ive Days few after, son younger o, one all Country everywhere food little: son hungry very Go seek man any, me hire

Gentleman meet Gentleman son send field swine feed Son swine husks eat, see--self husks eat want--cannot--husks hiive nobody Son thinks, say, father ive away can--I none--starve, die I decide: Father I go to, say I bad, God disobey, you disobey--naive servant like So son begin go Father far look: son see, pity, run, meet, embrace Son father say, I bad, you disobey, God disobey--name my hereafter _son_, no--I unworthy But father servants call, coer put on, shoes feet put on, calf fat bring, kill We all eat, merry Why? Son this my formerly dead, now alive: formerly lost, now found: rejoice”

It eneral study, that the verb ”to be” as a copula or predicant does not have any place in sign language It is shown, however, a deaf-n of stretching the arn of affirmation _Time_ as referred to in the conjunctions _when_ and _then_ is not gestured

Instead of the foro to the river,”

or ”After sleeping I will go to the river,” both deaf-mutes and Indians would express the intention by ”Sleep done, I river go”

Though tins (see page 366), it is done once for all in the connection to which it belongs, and once established is not repeated by any subsequent intimation, as is commonly the case in oral speech Inversion, by which the object is placed before the action, is a striking feature of the language of deaf-mutes, and it appears to follow the natural method by which objects and actions enter into thea rock the natural conception is not first of the abstract idea of striking or of sending a stroke into vacancy, seeing nothing and having no intention of striking anything in particular, when suddenly a rock rises up to the mental vision and receives the blow; the order is that the man sees the rock, has the intention to strike it, and does so; therefore he gestures, ”I rock strike” For further illustration of this subject, a deaf-ns the co a bird frohting upon it, then a hunter coun, then the report of the latter and the falling and the dying gasps of the bird These are undoubtedly the successive steps that an artist would have taken in drawing the picture, or rather successive pictures, to illustrate the story It is, however, urged that this pictorial order natural to deaf-enitally blind who are not deaf- whom it is found to be rhythmical It is asserted that blind persons not carefully educated usually converse in afirst in the structure of the sentence The deduction is that all the senses when intact enter into the mode of intellectual conception in proportion to their relative sensitiveness and intensity, and hence no one mode of ideation can be insisted on as normal to the exclusion of others

Whether or not the above state the blind is true, the conceptions and presentations of deaf-e because they cannot communicate by speech, are confined to optic and, therefore, to pictorial arrangement

The abbe Sicard, dissatisfied with the want of tenses and conjunctions, indeed of ns, and with their inverted order, attens, in which the words should be given in the order of the French or other spoken language adopted, which of course required hie

Signs, whatever their character, could not becoest them, until words had been learned The first step, therefore, was to explain by ns styled e Then each as taken separately and a sign affixed to it, which was to be learned by the pupil If the word represented a physical object, the sign would be the san, and would be already understood, provided the object had been seen and was fan convey as strong a suggestion of the esticulate these signs, thus associated ords, in the exact order in which the words were to stand in a sentence

Then the pupil would write the very words desired in the exact order desired If the previous explanation in natural signs had not been sufficiently full and careful, he would not understand the passage

The ive hiree, but only to show hi to the order and e As there were no repetitions of tie, it becan for verbs others, to indicate the different tenses of the verbs, and so by degrees the ns for every word, but also, with every such sign, a gran to indicate what part of speech the as, and, in the case of verbs, still other signs to show their tenses and corresponding inflections It was, as Dr

Peet remarks, a cumbrous and unwieldly vehicle, ready at every step to break down under the weight of its own ht in all our schools fro of the American Asylum in 1817 down to about the year 1835, when it was abandoned

The collection of narratives, speeches, and dialogues of our Indians in sign language, first systematically commenced by the present writer, several examples of which are in this paper, has not yet been sufficiently complete and exact to establish conclusions on the subject of the syntactic arrangens So far as studied it seems to be similar to that of deaf-uring first the principal idea and adding the accessories successively in the order of iic order If the exaeneral rules of construction, they at least show the natural order of ideas in the esturers and the several modes of inversion by which they pass fro with the dominant idea or that supposed to be best known Some special instances of expedients other than strictly syntactic corarees of comparison are frequently expressed, both by deaf-eneric or descriptive sign that for ”big” or ”little” _Damp_ would be ”wet--little”; _cool_, ”cold--little”; _hot_, ”warm--much” The a dimentation, but so, as is reported by Dr Mattheith reference to the sign for _bad_ and _conteree of motion is, however, often used for e of the voice in speech or italicizing and capitalizing in print The Prince of Wied gives an instance of a co that for _hard_, viz: Open the left hand, and strike against it several tiers) Afterwards he gives _hard, excessively_, as follows: Sign for _hard_, then place the left index-finger upon the right shoulder, at the sa the index-finger upward, perpendicularly