TOPICALIZATION RULES

Definition:

Topicalization:

An ASL grammar structure that the sentence has the topic in beginning of the sentence and the rest of the sentence is called comment. It has a topic-comment format. One way to think of topicalization is to liken it to drawing a picture.

Rules of Topicalization:

Topic always is either one of these three things: Subject or Object or Time. You never can have verb as your topic.

English has a sentence structure: Subject-Verb-Object (S-V-0). ASL is much more flexible than English so it has more than one sentence structure. The possibilities of ASL sentence structures are:

1) SVO = English sentence 4) OVS = Object Subject Verb

2) SOV = Subject, Object, Verb

3)OSV = Object, Subject, Verb

How do we decide which sentence pattern is best for ASL? Rules follows for this:

1) Determine which one is subject, verb or object

2) Determine what topic you want to use for this sentence

3) Try to think which sentence pattern you want to use before you sign

4) The sentence pattern you want to use need to fit the concept you are trying to make and the concept be most accurate visually. If the concept does not make sense or if it does not fit your picture visually, don’t sign it.

Time:

Time also can be used as topic too. When it is used as a topic in sentence, the possibilities of ASL sentence patterns are:

TSVO = Time, Subject, Verb, Object TOVS = Time, Object, Verb, Subject

TSOV = Time, Subject, Object, Verb

TOSV = Time, Object, Subject, Verb

Time also can be at the ending of the sentence. When it is used like this, we put time as ending of the sentence for emphasis. The possibilities of ASL sentence patterns are:

SVOT = Subject, Verb, Object, Time OVST= Object, Verb, Subject, Time

SOVT = Subject, Object, Verb, Time

OSVT = Object, Subject, Verb, Time