A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Adjectives are typically used to describe, qualify, or specify a nominal element. Note that the same sign may be used as an adjective or an adverbial, as exemplified below with the sign quick (LEXICON 3.5).

            fast

            ‘Quick’

            ‘Quickly’

Some adjectives in LIS must co-occur with specific non-manuals, usually connected with the semantic meaning of the sign. To illustrate, the adjective thin must be simultaneously articulated with tongue protrusion (tp), which typically indicates small amount or thinness.

                   tp

            thin

A functional distinction that it is important to keep in mind is that between attributive and predicative adjectives. On the one hand, attributive adjectives occur within the noun phrase and modify the noun. For a discussion of the syntactic distribution of adjectives within the nominal phrase see SYNTAX 4.5. On the other hand, predicative adjectives function as verbs: they do not directly combine with the noun, but predicate something about it.

            The distinction between attributive and predicative adjectives might not be straightforward in LIS since both types of adjectives usually follow the noun they refer to. So, for instance, in a sequence of manual signs like furniture old, the adjective old can function both as attributive and predicative adjective (the old furniture vs. the furniture is old). So, word order cannot be used as diagnostic test. How the two functions can be distinguished is discussed in the next sections with concrete examples.