Motion diagram. A Deaf-recorded clip from the PopSign corpus (CC BY 4.0) exists for this sign and can be placed here.
NOW
“now”
How to make it
Hold two bent hands (or 'Y' hands) in front of you, palms up, and drop them a short way.
Grammar
Time is usually established first in an ASL sentence: 'NOW ME HUNGRY', not 'ME HUNGRY NOW'.
Where the sign comes from
DocumentedDerivation traced in historical-linguistic scholarship.
ASL lays time along a line through the body: the present is right here at the body, the future ahead, the past behind the shoulder. NOW plants itself at the present point.
Sources
- Cogen 1977 (time line)Cogen, Cathy. "On Three Aspects of Time Expression in American Sign Language." In On the Other Hand: New Perspectives on American Sign Language, edited by Lynn Friedman, 197–214. Academic Press, 1977.
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
downward
Both hands move together.
Palm facing up.