A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

Signing about time involves systematic usage of space where past, present, and future are mapped on certain lines of signing space [Morphology - Section 3.2.1.]. A way of mapping time onto signing space is the basic time line which is an imaginary line along the saggital axis. The shoulder or neutral position represents present, frontal signing area future, and back of the body past. This mapping is manifested in time adverbials such as yesterday, today and tomorrow.

 

 

yesterday

 

 

 

today

 

 

 

tomorrow

 

The mapping is iconic in that the distance in the signed time line corresponds to distance in time. See below examples that denote far-future, near-future, near-past, and, far-past:

 

 

 

far-future

 

 

 

 

near-future

 

 

 

near-past

 

 

 

far-past

 

 

When timepoints are described with respect to a reference point, generally the sequence time line is used which is from contralateral to ipsilateral signing area (lateral axis). This time line is observed in lexical items such as after which is used as a connective between consecutive events:

 

 

 

after

 

In construction level, when giving information about a specific time interval, sequence time line can be used. See below an example where two dates and the interval between them are located with a downward movement along the lateral axis.

 

 

 

h1: fıfteen august ıx_a auntıl_bthırty august ıx_b-loc vacatıon

h2:                  ıx_a______________________________ ıx_a-loc vacatıon

         ‘I am on vacation from 15 August to 30 August’