long ago
|
a while ago |
past tense, past |
present, now |
today, currently |
future, will
|
someday |
far into the future
yesterday |
recently |
everyday,
daily|
tomorrow |
soon |
later | More
past tense terms:
late |
not yet |
finish
ASL Sentence Structures
American Sign Language does not use suffixes to indicate past or future tense,
such as -ed or -ing. Instead, we use time concepts to indicate the past,
present or future tense.
To change a verb to past tense, we would simply tack on the word "past,
before, ago."
For example: eat + past = ate; see + past = saw;
Or you can sign: eat + finish= already ate; see + finish
= already saw
To make it future tense, we add "will, future."
For example: eat + will = will eat; see + will = will see
To indicate the present tense, simply sign the verb.
How to use time concepts within a sentence:
In English, verbs have to agree. For example,
it would be incorrect for me to write: "Yesterday, I go to the store. "
The correct way is to write, "Yesterday, I went to the store."
In American Sign Language, that's an entirely different
matter. The above example: "Yesterday I go store" is grammatically
correct, because "yesterday" in ASL automatically alters "go" into the past
tense. Yesterday changes everything in that sentence into the past tense.
That being the case, time concepts are almost
always placed at the beginning of a sentence.
Past tense:
Past weekend, I go ski. (Last weekend, I went
skiing)
Past month, I CL:3-crash. (Last month I
was in a car accident)
You can substitute past weekend or past month with: yesterday, long ago, a
while ago, recently, years ago, etc
Or:
You can sign the following, tacking finish at the end (which still makes
everything past tense).
I ate finish. (I already ate)
My mom work finish. (My mom is done with
her work).
Future tense:
Someday, I marry I. (Someday,
I will marry)
Tomorrow, I bike work. (Tomorrow, I will
bike to work)
See later. (I will see you later)
Soon, I vacation work. (Soon I'll be off
work)
Present tense:
I go school. (I'm going to school)
I read book. (I'm reading a book)
Compare these three:
Today, (head nod) I go movie. (Today, I
will go to the movies)
Finish (head tilt)saw movie today. (I
already saw that movie today).
Today/currently (with urgent, wincing expression), I go movie. (I'm
going to the movies right now)