A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Pointing signs are widespread in the LIS lexicon and occur in several contexts, with different morphosyntactic functions: as pronouns (LEXICON 3.7), determiners (LEXICON 3.6), demonstratives (SYNTAX 4.1.2), locative adverbials and agreement markers (LEXICON 3.3.4). Even though they fulfil a wide range of functions, they have two properties in common: i) the handshape G, which can be oriented towards different directions, and ii) the fact that they associate specific points of the signing space (called loci) to the referents of the discourse, whatever the function they have in that specific context. Therefore, the signing space, namely the space around the signer in which signs are articulated, is crucial for the articulation of pointing signs. The signing space comprises both the signer’s body and the space around her/him, in which signs are associated to loci more or less distant from the signer. The feature [+/- proximal] defines the signer ([+ proximal], indicating a point on the signer’s body), and the addressee ([- proximal], indicating a locus of the signing space, in general in front of the signer). The feature [+/- distal] indicates a locus far from both the signer and the addressee, which is usually associated to the third person.

            As we saw in the previous sections, the space can have both grammatical and topographic functions, depending on the way in which points of articulation are exploited: if they are associated to thematic roles or convey plurality, space has a grammatical function in that it allows the realisation of verbal and nominal agreement (MORPHOLOGY 3.1 and MORPHOLOGY 4); if loci are used to indicate the position of entities, space has a topographic function. The same holds for pointing signs: those functioning as pronouns, determiners and demonstrative associate grammatical features to the loci in space; those functioning as locative markers exploit the topographic nature of space. Below, we provide some examples of pointing signs used as determiner (a), personal pronoun (b-c), and locative marker (d).

            a.         teacher        ix(def)_a

            ‘The teacher’

            b.         ix₁

            ‘I’

            c.         ix₃

            ‘Her/him’

            d.         dom:    ix(loc)_a

                        n-dom: CL(L): ‘corner’_a

            ‘In the corner’