Forming Questions in English and American Sign Language
I’m currently an American Sign Language Level 4 student at Yale University. One very fascinating part of the language is how questions are formed. ASL is not a direct translation of English and does have its own structure. However, the entire structure of ASL is too broad to be the topic of one short blog post, so for today, I will just be discussing question formation. I am not an ASL Interpreter or an ASL teacher. These are just fascinating things I have learned through taking ASL classes and wanted to share a comparison for my Cognitive Science of Language class.
Now to start, let’s look at the English language. How do we make questions? Well, there are a lot of ways: inversion, who/what/when/where/why/how, and do/does questions.
Inversion
Inversion is putting the verb before the subject.
- Am I late? (I am late.)
- Are you okay? (You are okay.)
- Are we eating cheeseburgers for dinner? (We are eating cheeseburgers for dinner.)
Who, what, when, where, why, and how
If there is a question word, then it gets placed before the verb.
- When are we eating dinner? (Are we eating dinner?)
- Why are you crying? (Are you crying?)
- How can I help? (Can I help?)
Do and does
For other verbs in the present simple, we use the auxiliary verb do/does at the beginning of the question.
- Do you want to get dinner?
- Does your knee hurt?
You can also add a question word to a do/does question to make it look like this: “When do you want to get dinner?” or “How much does your knee hurt?” I’m currently in a Cognitive Science of Language class which has deep-dived into many languages, but often times we focus on English. One thing we learned when talking about question formation was the two main options (or rules) for structuring a question in the English language.
- Option 1: To form an English question, move the linearly first auxiliary verb to the front of the sentence.
- Option 2: To form an English question, move the auxiliary verb which follows the subject noun phrase to the front of the sentence.
Now, you might be wondering “What is an auxiliary verb?” Auxiliary verbs, sometimes known as helper verbs, are used alongside a main verb to express tense, mood, or voice. support the sentence’s main verb to communicate complex grammar concepts like aspects of time or modality. For example, in this sentence, “I have started my homework,” the auxiliary verb have supports the main verb start. Some examples of auxiliary verbs include: be, do, have, will, would, should, could, can, may, must, and ought.
Let’s look at an example to see which option we can use: The kid who is sleeping has finished her snack. If we use Option 1, then we end up with this question: Is the child who eating has finished her snack? You should be thinking that this does not sound right, and you would be correct. If we use Option 2, then we end up with this question: Has the kid who is sleeping finished her snack?
Another big thing in the English language is the voice inflection that occurs when asking a question. (Sidenote: “Uptalk” is a phenomenon where every sentence sounds like a question due to a rise in pitch. If you're interested in taking a little segway, then check out this article here which explains Uptalk and the stigma surrounding it). In English, a rising inflection is used at the end of a sentence to emphasize that it is a question, however, in Americal Sign Language, you cannot do this same thing. So, how do you know if someone is asking a question in ASL?
There are two main types of questions in ASL: Yes/No and WH-type questions. Many people who are not involved in the d/Deaf or h/Hard of Hearing community don’t realize that there are many parts that make up ASL structure (like facial expressions!!). For questions, some of the important things to focus on are:
- Eyebrows: are they up or down?
- Body posture: are you leaning in?
- Question words: if there is one, where does it go?
- Is it conversational or formal?
Yes/No questions
In English, we talked about how we place do/does at the beginning of a question, but in ASL there is no sign for do. This means that it is implied based on the other signs and the formation of the question. For example, “Do you like running?” or “Do you want a hug?” are both English questions that start with do. However, in ASL, since there is no sign for “do,” we would sign this a little differently and leave out the word do. So if we took “Do you like running?” and wanted to ask in ASL, then the structure would become “You + like + running + you?”
For yes/no questions, you need to have your eyebrows up, lean in toward the other person, and point back at the other person (or subject of the sentence) at the end of the sentence.
- Do you have a dog? → Dog + you + have + you?
- Are you going to the gym? → Gym + you + go + you?
- Does he like dogs? → Dogs + he + like + he?
Sometimes in more conversational settings, you may not point to the other person (or subject) at the end of your question. I’ll write this out for the same questions as above.
- Dog + you + have?
- Gym + you + go?
In the following video, I go through the first three bullet points and sign the questions and sign the last two bullet points without the sign “you” at the end.
WH-type questions: who, what, when, where, why, which, and how
In English, we talked about how the question word gets placed before the verb in a question. For example, “Where are you going?” or “Who is your friend?” However, in ASL, the wh-words usually go at the end of the question. So if we took “Who is your friend?” and wanted to ask in ASL, then the structure would become “Your + friend + who?” It places a big emphasis on the wh-word at the end which is when you may typically lean in toward the other person when signing your question. “ASL vs. English: WH-words goes at the end of question” is a video by the YouTube account ASL THAT which shows the difference between English and ASL question word sentences.
For wh-type questions, you need to have your eyebrows down, lean in toward the other person, and add the wh-word to the end of the sentence.
- Where are you eating tonight? → You + eat + tonight + where?
- When are you flying to France? → You + fly + France + when?
In some signed conversations, you may put the question word at the beginning (similar to English) and then sign it again at the end of the question. If you’re talking to a friend, you may also leave out the second question word at the end and only sign it once at the very beginning. In formal ASL, though, the question word is always at the end of the sentence. I’ll show some examples of this following the same format as the questions above.
- Where + you + going + tonight + where?
- When + you + fly + France + when?
If you are having a conversation with someone, it is often that you don’t sign the subject “you” because it is clear who you are talking about. Additionally, sometimes you may emphasize the questions by either adding the sign for “question” or adding the sign for “what” at the end.
- Where + you + going + question?
- Where + you + going + what?
- You + going + where + what?
In the following video, I go through the first two bullet points and sign the questions, then I sign the second two bullet points, and then I sign the last three bullet points at the end.
Lastly, the only reason you would raise your eyebrows for a wh-type question is if it were rhetorical like “Do birds fly?” to imply that something is obvious. Here is a video by Bill Vicars which shows this difference in a longer video if you would like to learn more.
Is sign language an innate language too?
We’ve learned in my Cognitive Science of Language class that humans have an innate predisposition to learn language. Noam Chomsky was determined to explain how young children, in every culture known to exist, easily grasp incredibly complex rules of word order and sentence formation. There is much evidence that this is true for spoken language, but what about signed language? The short answer is yes.
To answer this question, with an actual example, let’s look at the language development of a 9-year-old boy named Simon. Researchers studied him from 2.5 to 9 years old. Simon learned American Sign Language from his Deaf parents, but it wasn’t formal ASL and had many errors in it. However, despite growing up learning these errors, he was able to sign ASL with proper grammar and structure. Of course, this is just one child and not representative enough of a population, but it is important to reflect on it nonetheless.
