MALLERY. ] SYNTAX OF DEAF-MUTE SIGNS. 361 
Deaf and Dumb, vol. xvi, p. 223, as the order in which the parable of the 
Prodigal Son is translated into signs: 
“Once, man one, sons two. Son younger say, Father property your 
divide: part my, me give. Father so.—Son each, part his give. Days 
few after, son younger money all take, country far go, money spend, 
wine drink, food nice eat. Money by and by gone all. Country every- 
where food little: son hungry very. Go seek man any, me hire. Gen- 
tleman meet. Gentleman son send field swine feed. Son swine husks 
eat, see—self husks eat want—cannot—husks him give nobody. Son 
thinks, say, father my, servants many, bread enough, part give away 
can—I none—starye, die. I decide: Father I go to, say I bad, God dis- 
obey, you disobey—name my hereafter son, no—I unworthy. You me 
work give servant like. So son begin go. Father far look: son see, 
pity, run, meet, embrace. Son father say, I bad, you disobey, God dis- 
obey—name my hereafter son, no—I unworthy. But father servants call, 
command robe best bring, son put on, ring finger put on, shoes feet put 
on, calf fat bring, kill. We all eat, merry. Why? Son this my for- 
merly dead, now alive: formerly lost, now found: rejoice.” 
It may be remarked, not only from this example, but from general 
study, that the verb “to be” as a copula or predicant does not have any 
place in sign language. It is shown, however, among deaf-mutes as 
an assertion of presence or existence by a sign of stretching the arms 
and hands forward and then adding the sign of affirmation. Time as 
referred to in the conjunctions when and then is not gestured. Instead of 
the form, “When I have had a sleep I will go to the river,” or “After 
sleeping I will go to the river,” both deaf-mutes and Indians would ex- 
press the intention by “‘Sleep done, I river go.” Though time present, 
past, and future is readily expressed in signs (see page 366), it is done 
once for all in the connection to which it belongs, and once established 
is not repeated by any subsequent intimation, as is commonly the case 
in oral speech. Inversion, by which the object is placed before the ac- 
tion, is a striking feature of the language of deaf-mutes, and it appears 
to follow the natural method by which objects and actions enter into 
the mental conception. In striking a rock the natural conception is 
not first of the abstract idea of striking or of sending a stroke into 
vacayey, seeing nothing and having no intention of striking anything 
in particular, when suddenly a rock rises up to the mental vision and 
receives the blow; the order is that the man sees the rock, has the inten- 
tion to strike it, and does so; therefore he gestures, “TL rock strike.” For 
further illustration of this subject, a deaf-mute boy, giving in signs the 
compound action of a man shooting a bird from a tree, first represented 
the tree, then the bird as alighting upon it, then a hunter coming toward 
and looking at it, taking aim with a gun, then the report of the latter - 
and the falling and the dying gasps of the bird. These are undoubtedly 
the successive steps that an artist would have taken in drawing the pic- 
ture, or rather successive pictures, to illustrate the story. It is, how- 
