Status Updates From The Syntax of American Sign...

Wh-questions in ASL obligatorily occur with a specific nonmanual expression. This nonmanual wh-marking consists, most notably, of furrowed brows, squinted eyes, and a slight side-to-side head shake.

In ASL, the null object of a nonagreeing verb (accompanied by nonmanual agreement markings) can refer to the matrix subject:

 head tilt-j
 ----------------
 eye gaze-i
 ------------- 
 JOHN-i IX-i THINK MARY-j LOVE e-i
 

Some lexical signs have specific nonmanual markings associated with them. For example, the sign glossed as NOT-YET has an obligatory nonmanual marking, in the form of a slack protruding tongue. If the same manual sign is articulated without the nonmanual marking, the meaning changes to 'late'.

A signer may report that a sentence is acceptable because it is understandable, not because it is necessarily grammatical. As previously mentioned, the heterogeneity of the signing community has engendered a high degree of tolerance for non-native signing.