Classifiers In American Sign Language

American Sign Language is a unique language with diverse syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and morphemes, which includes grammatical aspects which are not present in English including classifiers. Despite the limited research in specific areas of ASL, due to ASL not being officially recognized as a language until 1960, the importance of classifiers is indisputable. Classifiers are “designated handshapes and/or rule-grounded body pantomime used to represent nouns and verbs” by representing a class of things with a shared characteristic (Aron 1). They can express many different key pieces of information and are an extremely complex aspect of ASL grammar. Classifiers are essential to nearly all levels of storytelling, making both receptive and expressive …show more content…
The first category, Size and Shape Specifiers or SASSes, describe certain physical characteristics of an item, including size, shape, depth, and texture, and indicate its location in space (Aron 1). SASSes can be separated into two different types, “static SASSes, where handshapes indicate the shapes of a referent, and tracing SASSes, where it is the movement of the hand(s) that indicates(s) properties of the referent by outlining its shape and size” (Frederiksen 54). Semantic classifiers are the second category and are used to represent nouns. They can indicate its location and its actions and can be either iconic or arbitrary representation of the class of nouns they represent (Aron 1). The next kind of classifier, body classifiers, use the body to represent a look or an action (Aron 2). Body part classifiers are another category of classifiers and describe either parts of the body and their actions or objects on the body. Body part classifiers are mostly used when the additional description is important for the story line (Aron 2). Instrument classifiers add specific information to a predicate about how objects are handled or manipulated (Aron 2). The last main category of classifiers is locative classifiers, classifiers used to indicate the spatial relationship between two or more things (Aron 2). The three subcategory classifiers are unique because they can be applied to the main category classifiers. The first subcategory classifier is plural classifiers which are used to show there is more than one object. An interesting function of plural classifiers is that they can be used to represented an organized or chaotic arrangement of the items depending on how the dominant and nondominant hands are used (Aron 2). Descriptive classifiers can describe the size, shape, depth, and texture of an item and often act adjectively (Aron 3). The final subcategory