Motion diagram. A Deaf-recorded clip from the PopSign corpus (CC BY 4.0) exists for this sign and can be placed here.
GIVE
“give”
How to make it
Hold a flat 'O' hand near your body and move it outward toward the receiver, opening slightly.
Grammar
A directional verb. Toward you: 'I give you'. Toward me: 'you give me'. Between two set-up points: 'she gives him'.
Where the sign comes from
IconicThe sign visibly depicts its meaning — a present-day resemblance, not a historical claim.
Handing something over. Like HELP, it is directional: the path from giver to receiver is the grammar.
Sources
- ASL-LEX (iconicity)Sehyr, Zed Sevcikova, Naomi Caselli, Ariel Cohen-Goldberg, and Karen Emmorey. "The ASL-LEX 2.0 Project: A Database of Lexical and Phonological Properties for 2,723 Signs in American Sign Language." Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 26, no. 2 (2021): 263–277. link
The sign, taken apart
Every ASL sign is built from a handshape, a place it's made, and a movement. Learn to see these three and you can read and store any sign.
Location
Neutral space
Made at the neutral space.
Movement
an arc
One-handed.
Palm facing up.