A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Attributive adjectives combine with a noun within the noun phrase. We provide below a couple of adjectives that can be used attributively: beautiful and big.

 

           

            a.         beautiful

 

           

            b.         big

 

Looking at the articulation of these adjectives, we can see that beautiful is body anchored (a), whereas big is produced in the neutral space (b). The distinction between body-anchored and non-body-anchored adjectives is relevant in terms of agreement (SYNTAX 4.5).

            The lexical category of adjectives also includes Size-and-Shape-Specifiers (SASS) (MORPHOLOGY 5.2), signs denoting the shape of the referent. For example, the SASS illustrated below can be used to describe a round shape, and hence fulfils an adjectival function.

 

            

            SASS(curved open L): ‘round’

            ‘Round’

 

The fact that an attributive adjective and the related noun belong to the same noun phrase is signalled non-manually and prosodically. In the example below, the adjective old is an attribute of the noun furniture. These two signs are marked by the same non-manuals, which generally consist in raised eyebrows (re), although variation across signers is documented in terms of intensity and kind of facial expression.

 

 

 

                                             re

            furniture_a old ix_a change need

            ‘The old furniture must be replaced.’ (adapted from Bertone, 2007: 166)

 

The pointing sign (ix) occurring at the end of the noun phrase is optional. On the optionality of pointing signs, the reader is referred to the section on definite determiners (LEXICON 3.6.1).

 

 

 

                                      re

            furniture old change need

            ‘The old furniture must be replaced.’ (adapted from Bertone, 2007: 166)

 

The distinction between the noun phrase (containing noun and attributive adjective) furniture old (ix) and the verb phrase change need is usually signalled by: i) the use of different non-manuals, ii) the presence of an (optional) pointing sign (ix), which generally is the last element of noun phrase, and iii) an in-between prosodic break, which is typically combined with a head nod.

            Most adjectives in LIS are independent manual signs (like big above). However, some adjectival meanings can be conveyed through non-manuals simultaneously combined with the noun they modify. We provide below a couple of examples to clarify this possibility.

 

           

                                      tp

            a.         street

            ‘Narrow street’ (recreated from Petitta, Di Renzo & Chiari, 2015: 161)

 

           

                                      md

                                        fe

            b.         yellow

            ‘Disgusting yellow’ (inspired by Fornasiero, 2015: 89)

 

           

                                fe

            c.         red

            ‘Dark red’ (recreated from Bertone, 2011: 29)

 

In (a), tongue protrusion (tp) simultaneously layered on the manual sign street expresses the meaning of ‘narrow’. Furrowed eyebrows (fe) together with tensed mouth-corners down (md) can be used to express contempt, as exemplified in (b). Furrowed brows co-occurring with a colour sign like red indicates a dark tint, as in (c).