American Sign Language

Production

• This two-handed ASL sign is produced as follows:
  1. Posture the nondominant hand in the “1” handshape in front of the center of the chest, extended finger(s) of the nondominant hand pointing up. Posture the dominant hand in the “1” handshape with the dominant hand several inches from the thumb of the nondominant hand, extended finger(s) of the dominant hand pointing up.
  2. Move the dominant hand to the nondominant hand so the backs of the thumbs contact each other.
  3. Posture the nondominant hand in the “1” handshape in front of the center of the chest, extended finger(s) of the nondominant hand pointing up. Posture the dominant hand in the “1” handshape with the dominant hand at the thumb of the nondominant hand, extended finger(s) of the dominant hand pointing up.
• This is a directional sign, so the location and orientation of the hands change for inflection. See Inflection, below, for details.

Verb

Upload png, jpg, or gif image. (ASL gloss: MEET, [A]-MEET-[B])

1. (transitive) to meet

   (ASL gloss) NICE ME-MEET-YOU

   "Nice to meet you."

Inflection

This is a directional sign, so the location and palm orientation of the hands change for inflection:

• The initial location of the moving hand and the initial palm orientation of the stationary hand identify the subject.
• The location of the stationary hand and the palm orientation of the moving hand identify the object.
• The dominant hand is usually the hand that moves, but if the person on the nondominant side of the signer is the subject and the person on the dominant side of the signer is the object, the nondominant hand moves instead for ease of production.
• Thus, "I meet you" is produced with the dominant hand initially near the signer, palm facing the addressee, and the nondominant hand near the addressee, palm facing the signer.
• "The person on the right meets the person on the left" is produced with the right hand initially on the right, palm facing left, and with the left hand on the left, palm facing right.