A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

As we have seen in PHONOLOGY 1.4 and LEXICON 1.1, signs belonging to the core lexicon of LIS can be one- or two-handed. As far as two-handed signs are concerned, some of them are the result of lexicalisation (LEXICON 1.3.1) or simultaneous compounding (MORPHOLOGY 1.1.2). We provide an illustrative example below.

 

           

            tea

 

As we can see in the example above, the sign for tea is the combination of two entity classifiers: the non-dominant hand (right hand) represents the cup, whereas the dominant hand (left hand) encodes a handle classifier indicating the dipping of the tea bag. The meaning of this two-handed sign is not ‘dipping a tea bag into the cup’. This is because this simultaneous construction is lexicalised, and the final meaning ‘tea’ is derived from the combination of the two parts.

However, these signs must be distinguished from other simultaneous two-handed constructions, which are active in LIS beyond the lexicon. Specifically, in these constructions the two hands encode two different referents or fulfil two different syntactic functions. We discuss these constructions below.

            One very typical kind of simultaneous construction involves classifier handshapes. Specifically, we refer to classifier predicates (MORPHOLOGY 5), which refer to different entities simultaneously providing information about their motion or location within the signing space. Example (a) below shows a complex simultaneous construction in which the dominant (right hand) and non-dominant hand (left hand) refer to two different entities (a child and a fence, respectively) and the non-manual markers convey information about the way in which the action of climbing over the fence is happening, namely ‘with difficulty’. The movement applied to the dominant hand shows how the child moves to climb over the fence. In (b), instead, the two hands encode the location of two different entities, a lamp (right hand) and a library (left hand). The position of the hands in space indicates that the two entities are positioned closed to each other. Here, non-manuals (squinted eyes ‘sq’ and wrinkled nose ‘wrn’) convey proximity of the two entities (MORPHOLOGY 2.2.3).

 

            

                                                                                                  sq

                                                                                                   tp

            a.      dom:     CL(curved open V): ‘person_climb_over’

                     n-dom: CL(4): ‘fence_be_located’

            ‘(The child) climbs over the fence with difficulty.’

 

            

                                                                            sq

                                                                           wrn

            b.         dom:    CL(G): ‘lamp_be_located’

                        n-dom: CL(unspread 5): ‘bookcase_be_located’

            ‘The lamp is next to the bookcase.’

 

Another very common process concerns the possibility of using the two articulators independently, similarly to what happens in buoys (LEXICON 1.2.3). In these constructions, the non-dominant hand maintains the referent in the background, while the dominant hand keeps signing. In the example below, the non-dominant hand (left hand) maintains the sign brick, while the dominant hand (right hand) articulates the verb see. Despite the simultaneity with which the two signs are articulated, the resulting construction is not a two-handed lexical sign, but rather a complex simultaneous construction.

 

   

   dom:    see

   n-dom: brick

   ‘The brick is visible.’

 

Other illustrative examples of simultaneous two-handed non-lexical constructions are cases in which the two manual articulators encode two different syntactic functions (SYNTAX 4.1.1.2). In the example below, the noun and its modifiers are expressed by the dominant hand, whereas the definite article is simultaneously expressed by the non-dominant hand.

 

 

 

                                      re                 sq rs: child

            dom:         child_a hair black walk  dad go

            n-dom:  ix_a--------------------- walk

            ‘The kid with black hair left whining and went to his dad.’