A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Spatial verbs, like agreement verbs, are spatially modified to mark their arguments. In contrast to agreement verbs, however, spatial verbs show agreement with locative arguments, rather than with the subject or object. An example is the classifier predicate CL(flat open 5): ‘move_book’. In the sentence below, the verb is articulated from one location to another (from a to b) to indicate from where to where the book is moved.

            sara book _aCL(flat open 5): ‘move_book’_b

            ‘Sara moves the book (from here to there).’

Note that locative arguments can be overtly expressed or can be omitted. In the sentence above, the classifier predicate acts as a transitive verb since it takes an agent (sara) and a theme (book). The locative arguments, the source and the goal, are implicitly understood from the context.

            In the example below, we can observe a spatial verb (put) acting as a ditransitive verb since it takes an agent (teacher), a theme (book) and a locative argument (shelf).

            teacher book shelf++ _aCL(flat open 5): ‘put_book’_b

            ‘The teacher puts the book on one of the shelves.’ 

In the two examples above, the handshape of the spatial verbs shows shape properties of the object moved or manipulated. Since they involve the movement of an object in space, there are no cases of intransitive spatial verbs.