to express that she wanted to drink water.[1] It is to be observed that there is one important part of construction which Dr. Scott's rules do not touch, namely, the relative position of the actor and the action, the nominative case and the verb. Dr. Schmalz attempts to lay down a partial rule for this. "If the deaf-mute connects the sign for an action with that for a person, to say that the person did this or that, he places, as a general rule, the sign of the action before that of the person. For example, to say, 'I knitted,' he moves his hands as in knitting, and then points with his fore-finger to his breast."[2] Thus, too, Heinicke remarks that to say, "The carpenter struck me on the arm," he would strike himself on the arm, and then make the sign of planing,[3] as if to say, "I was struck on the arm, the planing-man did it." But though these constructions are, no doubt, right enough as they stand, the rule of precedence according to importance often reverses them. If the deaf-mute wished to throw the emphasis not upon the knitting, but upon himself, he would probably point to himself first. Kruse gives the construction of "The ship sails on the water" like our own "ship sail water;" and of "I must go to bed," as "I bed go."[4]
A look of inquiry converts an assertion into a question, and fully serves to make the difference between "The master is come," and "Is the master come?" The interrogative pronouns, "who?" "what?" are made by looking or pointing about in an inquiring manner; in fact, by a number of unsuc-
- ↑ 'Account of Laura Bridgman;' London, 1845, p. 26. A similar instance, p. 157, "Jacket Oliver give mother."
- ↑ Schmalz, pp. 274, 58.
- ↑ Heinicke, p. 56.
- ↑ Kruse, p. 57. On consulting Mr. E. H. Hebden of Scarborough, a highly-educated deaf-and-dumb gentleman, I find him to disagree with Sicard and Schmalz to the natural order of actor and action. Mr. Hebden's order is, 1, object; 2, subject; 3, action, illustrating it by the gestures "door key open" to express "the key opens the door," and "mouse cat kill," to express "cats kill mice." This in no way contradicts Dr. Scott's rules. In these questions as to order of signs, it must always be borne in mind that the intelligibility of a gesture-sentence (so to speak) depends on the whole forming a dramatic picture, while this dramatic effect is very imperfectly represented by translating signs into words and placing these one after another. Thus when Mr. Hebden expressed in gestures, "I found a pipe on the road," the order of the signs was written down as "road pipe I-find," which does not seem a clear construction, but what the gestures actually expressed went far beyond this, for he made the spectator realize him as walking along the road and suddenly catching sight of a pipe lying on the ground.–[Note to 3rd Edition.]
