Contents -- Preface to the Third Edition -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- BASIC CONCEPTS -- Basic Concepts -- PHONOLOGY -- Unit 1 Signs Have Parts -- Unit 2 The Stokoe System -- Unit 3 The Concept of Sequentiality in the Description of Signs -- Unit 4 The Movement-Hold Model -- Unit 5 Phonological Processes -- Unit 6 Summary -- MORPHOLOGY -- Unit 1 Phonology vs. Morphology -- Unit 2 Deriving Nouns from Verbs in ASL -- Unit 3 Compounds -- Unit 4 Lexicalized Fingerspelling and Loan Signs -- Unit 5 Numeral Incorporation -- Unit 6 The Function of Space in ASL -- Unit 7 Classifier Predicates and Locative Verbs -- Unit 8 Classifier Predicates and Signer Perspective -- Unit 9 Subject-Object Agreement -- Unit 10 Pronouns and Determiners -- Unit 11 Temporal Aspect -- Unit 12 Derivational and Inflectional Morphology -- Unit 13 Time in ASL -- SYNTAX -- Unit 1 Definitions -- Unit 2 Simple Sentences with Plain Verbs -- Unit 3 Simple Sentences with Agreement Verbs -- Unit 4 Basic Sentence Types -- SEMANTICS -- Unit 1 The Meaning of Individual Signs -- Unit 2 The Meaning of Sentences -- LANGUAGE IN USE -- Unit 1 Variation and Historical Change -- Unit 2 ASL Discourse -- Unit 3 Bilingualism and Language Contact -- Unit 4 Language as Art -- SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS -- Analyzing Signs -- File 4-Introduction: What Do You Know When You Know a Language -- File 5-Introduction: Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Rules of Grammar -- File 6-Introduction: Arbitrariness in Language -- Signs Have Parts: A Simple Idea -- Introduction from A Dictionary of American Sign Language -- File 20-Phonetics: The Sounds of Speech -- File 30-Phonology: The Value of Sounds: Phonemes -- American Sign Language: The Phonological Base -- File 40-Morphology: The Minimal Units of Meaning: Morphemes -- File 42-Morphology: The Hierarchical Structure of Words.

File 43-Morphology: Word Formation Processes -- The Confluence of Space and Language in Signed Languages -- A Class of Determiners in ASL -- Syntax: Sentences and Their Structure -- Syntax: The Study of Sentence Structure -- Semantics: The Study of Meaning -- File 120-Regional Variation: The Origin of American Dialects -- File 123-Regional Variation: Variation at Different Levels -- Analyzing Variation in Sign Languages: Theoretical and Methodological Issues -- Sociolinguistic Aspects of the Black Deaf Community -- Toward a Description of Register Variation in American Sign Language -- Features of Discourse in an American Sign Language Lecture -- Language Contact in the American Deaf Community -- Index.