A Grammar of German Sign Language (DGS)

In topographic usage of space, actual or imagined spatial arrangements between animate and inanimate entities are reflected in the signing space. Descriptions of static scenes such as pictures, maps and room plans as well as descriptions of placement or movement of entities in space typically make use of topographic space. The entities located relative to each other in the scenes might be perceptually different (smaller or bigger). The smaller, movable and more salient entities are called “figure” while less movable, bigger and fixed ones are referred to as “ground.” Conventionally, in DGS locative constructions (both descriptions of simplex and complex scenes) ground is encoded/signed before figure. The ground might be represented on the non-dominant hand and be held during a longer stretch of discourse. There is a slight tendency to use the non-dominant hand to represent ground object in the saggital arrangements of the objects.

 

The syntactic structure of presenting lexical information and spatial placement of the discourse referents may vary in DGS. Noun phrases [Syntax 4] which serve to identify these referents usually precede classifiers [Morphology 5] containing orientation and location information about these referents. This follows a particular order where in case of two referents, the first one is identified and then placed in space via classifier, then the second one is identified and is located in the space relative to the first one. For each of the referents the identifying sign and the classifier are signed separately. This is illustrated in the example below, where a sign for tree follows an entity classifier corresponding to this referent and the sign identifying man occur before the two-legged entity classifier representing it.

 

 

 

  h1:                                       man     brown cl (z): ‘hat_be_at’ cl (Y): ‘man_be_at’

 

            h2:       tree                cl (B): ‘tree_be_at’__________________________________

            ‘A man with a brown hat is standing opposite a tree.’

        

(based on Perniss, 2007: 87)


 

 

 

 

Signers of DGS do not always follow the structure of referent presentation exemplified above. Depending on the type of the described referents,they tend to use only one identifying sign for both referents. Less frequently, the forms indicating spatial information of the signs might be placed in the space simultaneously. Only one sign may be used both to identify and spatialize referents. Furthermore, classifiers might be used before lexical signs or spatial information about the second entity can be presented and before the spatial information about the first entity is expressed.

 

In DGS, location and orientation information of the described entities are rarely encoded by classifiers alone. In fact, it is very common to use directional predicates such as look, either alone or combined with an entity classifier. In the example below, the signer uses look starting at a location which represents the location of the men aligned on the lateral axis. The direction of the predicate corresponds to the orientation or looking direction of the men in the example picture on the left.

 

 

            h1:        cl (Y): ‘one_man_looking at’

            h2:       cl (Y): ‘one_ man_looking at’

            ‘Two men are looking towards me.’

     

(based on Perniss, 2007: 104)

 

 

 

 

In addition to classifier predicates, prepositions might be used to mark spatial relations in DGS. We find them in two types, lexical prepositions like right and left andspatially modifiable prepositions next_to. The second type is less preferred than the first one. Prepositions can as well be incorporated into the verb stems. Examples of the lexical preposition, modifiable preposition and preposition incorporation are illustrated below.

 

a.         put_on_the_right  put_on_the_left

           ‘Put on the right of and put on the left of’

 

 

 

 

b.         put_next

            ‘Put next to’

 

 

 

 

c.         put_on_top_of

             ‘Put on the top of’

 

 

 

 

d.         put_under

             ‘Put under’

         

 

 

 

f.          h1:       man  left                                    next_to      cl (5):‘tree_be_at’

            h2:                left    direction_ahead  next_to   ________________

             ‘A man is standing next to a tree on the left’

          

(based on Perniss, 2007: 115)


 

 

 

Spatial descriptions can contain simultaneous expression of the entities. In case two entities are of the same type as the two men figures in the DGS example below, their spatial relation is expressed via a single predicate look.

 

 

  h1:       two    man      look  cl (B): ‘man_be_at’  look

 

            h2:                  man      look  cl (B): ‘man_be_at’ look

             ‘Two man are standing and looking at each other.’

           

(based on Perniss, 2007: 96)

 

 

 

Signers of DGS almost exclusively sign descriptions of both simple and complex scenes from their own perspective [Pragmatics 8.3], which is external to the event. As can be seen in the example above, if the objects are placed on the lateral axis they are mapped exactly in the same manner onto the signing space. The same convention applies for the entities on the sagittal axis.