@[youtube](https:https://youtu.be/6IlpZhRH6Ik) *Thank you for visiting our page. While we've uploaded the filmed presentation here on our OSF page along with a SRT and text file describing images in the video, you may also view the captioned video via YouTube for easier playback.* ****Poster presentation abstract:**** The “Motivated Look at Indicating Verbs in ASL” (MoLo) project is a three-year pilot study inspired by Cormier, Fenlon and Schembri (2015, 2018)’s study of indicating verbs and uses of space in British Sign Language (BSL). This open-access project (e.g., Berez-Kroeker et al 2017) will analyze naturalistic American Sign Language (ASL) conversations to uncover conventions on the directionality of ASL signs, which include indicating verbs. We will collect data from different ASL communities remotely through Zoom and will also annotate ASL videos from existing data collections (e.g., Sociolinguistic Variation of ASL from Lucas et al 2001) using ELAN (Crasborn and Sloetjes 2008) and the ASL Signbank (Hochgesang et al, 2020). The ultimate objective of the MoLo project is to understand ASL verbs—plain, indicating, and depictive—and their usage where mental spaces, particularly depictive spaces, are concerned. Our goal is to determine what sort of expressions are produced during the activation of specific depictive spaces (Dudis, 2011), ones that are three-dimensional, viewpoint-internal, and processual, in which the signer’s body depicts a body performing an action (aka “constructed action”). We are currently annotating existing ASL video collections (following minimal annotation practices) and will code them for directionality and depictive spaces. We will also closely examine the instances where indicating verbs emerge to determine whether (or not) the physical presence of the addressee impacts these verbs by using the analytical method, Conversation Analysis or CoAn (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974). Our hypothesis is that verbs that indicate are most often produced semiotically in motivated space, as part of depiction of a process, rather than as strict indication only, which would be arbitrary use of space. Determining whether or not the simultaneous co-occurrence of two unlike semiotic modes—depiction and indication—is possible contributes to our understanding of the general human semiotic repertoire. By [Paul G. Dudis][1], [Julie A. Hochgesang][2], [Emily Shaw][3], and [Miako Villanueva][4] *Acknowledgments* - Our research assistants (alphabetical order) Donovan Catt, Chanika Dorsey, Paul Gabriola, Lee Ann Tang, Nic Willow - Consultant Kearsy Cormier - MoLo Participants 🙌 - Funding provided by Gallaudet's Priority Research Fund grant 2019-2021 *References* Berez-Kroeker, A., Gawne, L., Kung, S., et al. (2017). Reproducible research in linguistics: A position statement on data citation and attribution in our field . Linguistics, 56(1), pp. 1-18. Retrieved 8 Mar. 2019, from doi:10.1515/ling-2017-0032 Cormier, K., Fenlon, J., & Schembri, A. (2015). Indicating verbs in British Sign Language favour motivated use of space. Open Linguistics, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2015-0025 Crasborn, O., & Sloetjes, H. (2008). Enhanced ELAN functionality for sign language corpora. In O. Crasborn, E. Efthimiou, T. Hanke, E.D. Thoutenhoofd, & I. Zwitserlood (Eds.), Proceedings of the third workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora, 39-43. Paris: ELRA. Dudis, P. (2011). The Body in Scene Depictions. In C. Roy (Ed.), Discourse in Signed Languages. 3-45. Washington: Gallaudet UP. Hochgesang, J. A., O. Crasborn, and D. Lillo-Martin. (2020). ASL Signbank. New Haven, CT: Haskins Lab, Yale University. https://aslsignbank.haskins.yale.edu/ Lucas, C., Bayley, R., and Valli, C. (2001). Sociolinguistic variation in American Sign Language. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696-735. Schembri, A., Cormier, K., & Fenlon, J. (2018). Indicating verbs as typologically unique constructions: Reconsidering verb “agreement” in sign languages. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 3(1), 141. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.468 [1]: https://my.gallaudet.edu/paul-dudis [2]: https://my.gallaudet.edu/julie-hochgesang [3]: https://my.gallaudet.edu/emily-shawng [4]: https://my.gallaudet.edu/miako-villanueva