Page "American Sign Language" Paragraph 5

ASL grammar is completely unrelated to that of English.

It lacks the inflections of English, such as tense and number, and does not use articles such as " the ", but its spatial mode of expression has enabled it to develop an elaborate system of grammatical aspect that is absent from English.

ASL grammar was obscured for much of its history by the practice of glossing it rather than transcribing it ( see Writing systems below ), a practice which conveyed little of its grammar apart from word order.