A Grammar of German Sign Language (DGS)

In DGS, markers of sentential negation usually follow verbs and appear in sentence final position. However preverbal occurrences are also possible. The examples below show pre-verbal (a) and post-verbal (b) occurrences of the manual negative particle not. The preverbal occurrences appear only in the contrastive contexts.

 

 

                        re    hs 

a.         e-v-a milk buy not

            ‘Eva did not buy milk.’

    

 

 

 

                                          hs

b.          e-v-a milk not buy, get water

            ‘Eva did not buy milk, (she) rather got water.’

 

 

 

Negated modal verbs appear either in verb second or final position. This is exemplified below for DGS sentences (a-b).

 

                                        hs

                                        re

a.         max can.not swim

            ‘Max is not able to swim.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

                        re                  hs  

b.         max swim       can.not                                                       

            ‘Unfortunately, Max cannot swim.’