A Grammar of German Sign Language (DGS)

A semantic subclass of adverbial clauses is the conditional clause. A conditional clause is composed of an antecedent (ant), which expresses a condition, and of a consequence (cons), which shows the result. Conditional clauses can be divided into two categories: factual conditionals and counterfactual conditionals. In factual conditionals, the condition expressed by this clause can be fulfilled or not fulfilled in reality (a). In counterfactual conditionals this clause construction conveys a fulfilment, which is impossible to reverse (b). Examples of factual and counterfactual conditionals in DGS are the following:

                                                      ant                         cons

                                                   re,hn

a.         if weather tomorrow good   ix₁ outside walk

            ‘If the weather tomorrow is good, I will take a walk outside.’

                                                     ant                         cons

                                  re, hn, sq                                                   

b.         if weather yesterday good  ix₁ outside walk

            ‘If the weather was good yesterday, I would have taken a walk outside.’