[misc.handicap] Dr. Supalla 7

James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (04/15/91)

Index Number: 14878

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

        MCE was developed in the 1970's.  ASL, in comparison, has a
long history.  MCE is a relatively new system.  Many people think
that MCE is a totally invented sign system but it isn't.  Some of it
is invented, and some of it is borrowed from AS L.  MCE frequently
borrows from ASL.  There are three categories of signs within MCE.
One is content words.  MCE borrowed heavily from ASL within this
category.  MCE borrowed many signs from ASL for specific concepts
(Example: improve).  Others were borrowed and modified.  Because ASL
has only one sign for the concept of "street", MCE borrowed that sign
and initialized it differently for each of the English words that
represent that concept (Example: street, road, avenue, boulevard).
In English the word "run" can convey many different meanings.   MCE
borrowed only one sign to be used for all of those concepts despite
the fact that ASL has a different sign for each of the various
meanings.  In MCE the same sign would be used for run in eac h of
these sentences: "My son is running." and "My son has a runny nose."

        The next group is function words.  This group is composed of
 words such as "to", "from", "the",  and various others.  ASL has its
 own set of function words, a smaller set than the set of English
 function words.  MCE borrowed the ASL signs for function words that
 occur in ASL and invented signs for those in English which have no
 equivalent in ASL (Example: the)  This is where the inventing began.

        The next group is bound morphemes.  ASL has its own system
 for bound morphemes but the developers of MCE did not borrow any of
 the ASL inflections.  Instead signs were invented for all the bound
 morphemes in English (Example: ing, ment).  The invented sign for
 the bound morpheme is signed in sequence with the free morpheme.

        This is basically how MCE was developed.  Some things were
borrowed from ASL, some signs were borrowed but modified or
initialized, and other signs were completely invented.

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