A Grammar of German Sign Language (DGS)

Classifier handshapes denote animate and inanimate entities they refer to. These classifier handshapes combine with verbs that express the movement or handling of referents, a change of posture or a location in space. Since they always occur in combination with verbs, they are morphologically considered to be bound morphemes. In general, three types of predicate classifiers are distinguished based on their syntactic behavior: i) entity classifiers (a), ii) bodypart classifiers (b) and iii) handling classifiers (c). Examples of all types of predicate classifiers in DGS are the following.

a.       cook^room woman cl(Y):‘stand_in’

         ʻThe woman stands in the kitchen.ʼ                 

                                                                       (based on Happ & Vorköper, 2006: 157)    

b.      lion cl(4 legs):‘walk’

         ʻThe lion walks.ʼ

                                                                                   (based on Glück & Pfau, 1998)

c.       flower cl(3 ):‘₁give₂’

         ʻI give you a flower.ʼ  

                                                                                   (based on Glück & Pfau, 1998)