Descripción de Módulos

gulp , make a mis t ake

The right claw handshape is drawn away from the signer’s throat while it simultaneously closes into a fist.

Colloquially glossed as gulp due to its location at the throat, the sign’s closest English translation is the expression

“egg on one’s face,” which means that someone has made a mistake and is embarrassed by it. The initial claw handshape reinforces the sign’s negative connotation, as is also seen in mad, angry, and complain (see entries).

Although this sign is not documented in historical texts, its proximity in form to the semantically related sign withhold, suppress makes it pos-sible that the two share an etymological link. In withhold, suppress, the claw hands drag down the length of the signer’s body and close into fists, repre-senting the metaphor “the heart is the center of emotion” and showing that the signer suppresses emotions by grabbing them from the chest and moving them into the gut. Stokoe et al. (1965) note the same connection between the two forms, which they translate as “restrain one’s feelings, repress” (180, 192).

ASL gulp, make a mistake

ASL withhold, suppress

126 habit

H

habit

This is the old French sign emmenoté (shackled ), which shows the hands in chains to symbolically convey “con-tracting bad habits” ( Lambert 1865).

This idea is found in both French and English, most notably in the expression slave to habit. Long (1910) identified the symbolism early on as “mental slavery.” Both Long and Higgins (1923) document the sign as a compound that began by pointing to the fore-head for think, thus confirming the metaphor of an imprisoned mind or spirit. Initialization has produced two variations of this sign: U for used to and T for tradition.

half ho ur

This sign derives from the old French sign cadran (dial ), which Lambert (1865) described as “act as if holding a pocket watch, place the right thumb in the center of the left and with the index open like a compass, indicate the hours by the circumference.” The contempo-rary sign half hour depicts the path of the compass needle around the dial or face of a watch with the right flat hand. This sign is a cognate of later (see entry).

ASL habit LSF emmenoté

( Lambert 1865)

ASL half hour

happen 127

ha ppen

The origin of this ASL sign is uncovered in the close relationship between the French verbs venir (come) and arriver (arrive). The French phrase Qu’est-ce qui est arrivé? can be translated into English as “What arrived?” or “What happened?” Ferrand (circa 1785) first noted the use of the LSF signs arriver and venir for announcing an event that recently happened: “Same sign as venir, then quickly pass the right hand perpendicularly in front of the left hand with the fingers and the palm turned toward the face.” Sicard (1808) similarly observed that “the sign of an event that recently happened is made by representing the action or feat of something by signing arriver which is originally the sign venir.” Clark (1885) is the first American author to record the sign, which he included in his entry accident: “the index fingers alone extended and held about horizontally, and pointing about to front; by wrist action suddenly turn the hands, backs towards each other.” In his entry history, he also describes a sign glossed as happenings—“hold the hands in front of shoulders, backs up, index fingers only extended” and point-ing toward each other after which the wrists rotate and drop down, like the sign come. George Veditz (1913) uses an intermediary form of happen in his film Preservation of the Sign Language, where the sign is directed toward the signer, like in come. In another exam-ple of happen’s link to come, Edward Allen Fay signs the contemporary form happen in his film Dom Pedro’s Visit to Gallaudet College (1913). Neither Long (1910) nor Higgins (1923) saw the association between happen and

ASL happen

LSF venir ( Lambert 1865)

128 happy

come or arrive. According to Higgins (1942), the sign meant something “falls out.” Over time, the sign has greatly expanded in meaning to include event, accident, and history, as well as to intro-duce a narrative (as in, “Let me tell you what happened”).

happy

The sign is closely related to the LSF avantage (advantage). The hand mov-ing upward as it taps the center of the chest is indicative of the metaphors “the heart /chest is the center of emotion”

and “up is good.” These metaphors explain Lambert’s description of the sign as a “lifted heart” (1865). LSF avantage has several translations, all of which connote positivity: avantage (advantage), avoir un coup de chance ( be lucky), and être assez heureux pour ( be fortunate, be happy for). Clark (1885) notes two forms of happy. He explains that when tapped over the heart, it meant “pleasure” and when moved circularly, it meant “happy,”

“pleased,” and “glad.” In ASL, as in LSF, the location of the contemporary sign has since moved to the middle of the chest.

ha rd

This sign originates from the LSF dur ( hard ): “Hit the back of the left hand with the back of the bent index finger of the right hand as one would

ASL happy LSF avantage

( Lambert 1865)

LSF avantage ( IVT 1997)

have 129 do if resonating a vase” ( Blanchet

1850). Cistercian monks also have used the sign for centuries: “Hit the back of the hand with the joint of the middle finger” (Us des Cisterciens 1890). Hearing people use a similar handshape when knocking on a hard object like a door. The change to a double hooked handshape occurred in tandem in LSF and ASL. In addition, the phonological process of assimilation occurred in ASL so that the left hand frequently assumes the same handshape as the right.

hat e

We see in this sign the flicking move-ment associated with reprimands or rejection. The middle finger is held down by the thumb and then briskly flicks open. This same gesture has been documented in France since the nineteenth century. The form standard-ized as a sign in LSF, and was then passed on to ASL, taking on the mean-ing “hate” and more recently “reject.”

hav e

➊ This very old sign comes from the old LSF avoir ( have) described as “open the two hands and bring them towards the self in a half-circle”

( Ferrand circa 1785), and “the idea of possession” ( Pélissier 1856 ). Long (1910), Veditz (1913), Roth (1941), and Watson (1964) all documented that

ASL hard LSF dur

( Brouland 1855)

ASL hate LSF hate

( YD from Oléron 1974)

ASL have 1 ( YD from Long 1910)

LSF avoir ( Pélissier 1856 )

130 hearing

possession was signaled by bringing the palms of both hands to the chest.

➋ Over time, the form has changed significantly, so that now the tips of the bent mitten hands touch the chest.

Even so, the American form have 2 is closer to its etymon than the contem-porary LSF sign, which has evolved quite differently and is exclusively produced with one hand. It is pos-sible a similar fate awaits have 2 as it is also produced with only one hand in certain contexts. Signers frequently accompany the manual component by slightly biting the bottom lip, an abbreviated articulation of the English word have. The nonmanual signal has become so ubiquitous that signers can produce the labiodental gesture alone and still be understood as signing have (Shaw 2013).