American Sign Language
Classifiers
Purpose of classifiers
Replaces
a noun
Clarifies a message
More efficient
Classifiers
show
movement, location,
and appearance
show where and how
something moves
Show what it looks like
where it is located
What do classifiers represent?
Whole entity
 Surface
 Instrumental
 Depth/width
 Extent
 Perimeter shape
 On-surface
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Use Classifiers to Describe the House
House Activity
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Find a partner.
The person with the closest birthday (you need to
ask and decide in ASL) will turn around and face
the back of the room.
The other person will face the front of the room.
I will put a picture up of a house and the person
facing forward will describe it.
The person facing away from the board will draw
it.
You have 10 minutes per round.
House Activity
House Activity
Letter Handshapes
A-
vase, can, bottle, statue,
placement of items on a
table
B/4- time marker, 4 people
together, walls, floors,
shelves, flat objects
Handshape Classifiers
 C-
cup, trash can, building, large
pipe, shape of something
 F- coins, buttons, eyes moving
back and forth, pearl necklace,
shape of cigar
 G- eyebrows, mouth, mustache,
collar, bird beak
Handshape Classifiers
ILY-
bird, airplane flying
L- show shape of objectspicture frame, clocks,
lakes, or size
O- pipes, handlebars, hose
 S-
show a head- nodding,
peaking through a door,
animal stretching/turning
head
 U- people sitting or standing,
thin objects- tongue, diving
board, tie
Number handshapes
 1 2 3 4-
person, time marker
two people
vehicle, animal
4 people, hair style,
whiskers
 5- 5 people walking, leaves
falling, hair style
3 kinds of Classifiers
Stative-
does not
move/stationary
Process- moves
Contact- touches
Stative
Car
parked
Time marker
Vase
Person standing
Process
Car
moving
Animal running
Person walking
Eyes moving
Contact
Vase
on table
Car parked
Coins on a table
Which Handshapes are allowed
for Classifers?
ABCDEFGHIJKL
MNOPQRSTUV
WXYZ
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Comic Strip
Teacher
demonstrate
Divide into two
groups
Tell comic strip using
classifiers
Comic Strip Homework
Bring
a comic strip to
class
Tuesday 9-27-05
Using classifiers tell
comic strip story