What you will learn

• Identify the historical origins in natural gesture for the emergence of ASL grammar.
• Describe the degree and types of structural variation within ASL, considering the possible influences from its contacts with other signed and spoken languages.
• Discuss the role of visual analogy in learning ASL, considering the possible linguistic universals for signed languages.
• List ways in which language specific variation and historical change for signed languages may compare and contrast to those for spoken languages.
• Describe the visual, motoric, and cognitive constraints which may give rise to these phenomena.