A Grammar of German Sign Language (DGS)

A single DGS clause can contain more than one predicate. We distinguish between depictive and resultative secondary predicates: Depictives are typically adjectival and describe a property of the subject or object of the sentence while the main event unfolds. In (a) below, the subject ix₃ ‘he’ is naked throughout the event of hammering on the piece of metal while the woman in (b) washes the dishes while pregnant. The fact that she is pregnant throughout the event is emphasized by a role shift [Syntax 3.3.3 and Pragmatics 6] into her perspective: plate and wash are signed with the hands held far out from the body as if to accommodate a pregnant belly. The depictive predicate follows the subject and precedes the object. It does not seem to form part of the subject noun phrase, which is represented by a pronoun. 

 

a.       ix₃ naked metal hammer finish

 

 

 

 

b.      ix₃ pregnant plate wash finish      

         ‘She washed the plate pregnant.’

        

 

 

In addition to depictives, DGS has resultative secondary predicates. They occur adjacent to the primary predicate, either preceding it as in (a) or following it  as in (b) below.

 

a.       ix₂ spoon₃ flat₃ hammer₃ can

         ‘You can hammer the spoon flat.’

 

 

   

                                                 wh

b.      spoon₃ hammer₃ flat₃ who

         ‘Who hammered the spoon flat?’

 

 

 

In contrast to depictives, resultatives do not describe a property that continues throughout the event described by the verb but one that comes about as the result of the verbal action. The spoon in the examples above was not flat at the beginning of the hammering event but it comes to have this property as a result of hammering. Resultative predicates say something about the object of the sentence rather than the subject. In the examples provided so far, the resultative predicate is true of an argument that is also selected by the verb, but this is not necessarily the case. In the example below, we see that the argument fridge is selected by empty but not by eat, since it is not the fridge that is eaten but its contents (which is left unexpressed in this sentence).

 

         ix₂ fridge₃ empty₃ eat may-not

         ‘You may not eat the fridge empty.’

  

 

 

 

The resultative construction allows most combinations of primary and secondary predicates, but at least in cases where the secondary predicate precedes the primary one, a durative verb (e.g. beat++) cannot be combined with a non-gradable adjective (e.g. dead).