A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Phonological phrases are composed of one or more prosodic words. They generally correspond to syntactic constituents, such as nominal phrases, prepositional phrases, and verbal phrases. As we will see, phonological phrases in LIS may be marked by non-dominant hand spreading as domain marker, as well as by head nod, eye blink, movement repetition, final hold, and phrase-final lengthening as right-edge markers.

            It may happen that after the articulation of a two-handed sign, the non-dominant hand remains in place until the end of the phonological phrase. This phenomenon, known as non-dominant hand spreading, functions as domain prosodic marker. It can be observed in the example below. The phonological phrase starts with the symmetric two-handed sign book, articulated with B handshape. The non-dominant hand in B handshape is maintained through the whole phonological phrase, while the dominant hand articulates another sign, ix(dem).

 

 

 

                                                                     hn

            dom:                book ix(dem)   interesting

            n-dom:            book B-------

            ‘That book is interesting.’

 

At the right edge of the phonological phrase, a head nod is produced. In the rightmost periphery of phonological phrases, we may also find other boundary markers. For instance, final lengthening is a common prosodic phenomenon occurring at the end of LIS nominal expressions. In particular, the duration of postnominal modifiers tends to be longer than that of prenominal modifiers. The adjective beautiful is one of the few adjectives in LIS that can occur before or after the noun (SYNTAX 4.5.1), as shown in (a) and (b), respectively.

 

 

 

 

            a.         travel america ix(loc) beautiful experience

            ‘My travel to the States was a beautiful experience.’

 

 

 

            b.         travel america ix(loc) experience beautiful

            ‘My travel to the States was a beautiful experience.’

The screenshots below show that, under the same context and semantic interpretation, the distribution of the adjective beautiful has an effect on its duration. When it is produced before the noun (a), the path movement is shorter and therefore the sign duration is shorter. Moreover, the sign in phrase-final position, experience, exhibits three forward movements, while in its citation form only two movements are required.

 

 

            Table: prenominal adjective

	beautiful	experience
duration	shorter	longer
movement	x 1	x 3

 

When beautiful is produced after the noun (b), the path movement is longer and thus the sign is characterised by longer duration. As for the noun experience, being in phrase-initial position, the sign exhibits two movements only.

 

            Table: postnominal adjective

	experience	beautiful
duration	shorter	longer
movement	x 2	x 1

 

The final lengthening observed at the end of the phonological phrase is generally perceived as a hold in the final sign. Final lengthening at the end of the phonological phrase is also observed when this domain does not appear in sentence-final position, as can be observed in the example below.

 

 

 

                                     eb

            house inside   book zero

            ‘There isn’t any book in the house.’

 

The phonological phrase house inside is marked by final lengthening and movement repetition on the rightmost sign (the preposition inside), as well as eye blink right after it. As for movement repetition, it is important to note that, in its citation form, inside is articulated with a single downward movement. Conversely, in the example above, this sign is characterised by movement reduplication (i.e. two downward movements).