A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

The most important difference observed between a noun and the corresponding verb is in non-manual markers. The noun in the noun-verb pair is typically articulated with the labial articulation of the corresponding word or part of it. The corresponding verb, on the other hand, is typically accompanied by specific mouth gestures, such as protrusion of the lips (lp) and slightly puffed cheeks (pc) (MORPHOLOGY 2.1.2.1)

         These mouth gestures are present in the articulation of verbs that form a pair with the corresponding noun when the signer does not need to specify, with an incorporated adverb, that the action denoted by the verb is articulated in a special way. To illustrate, the mouth gesture described above accompany the verb fly.

 

 

 

            lp

             pc

         fly

 

Conversely, in the following example, we can see the articulation of the noun plane: the manual sign is accompanied by the mouthing corresponding to the Italian word aereo (‘plane’).

 

 

 

         ‘aereo’

         plane

 

Another example is the verb cut_with_knife, where the sign is accompanied by lips protrusion and puffed cheeks.

 

 

 

                                      lp

                                     pc

         cut_with_knife

 

In the next figure the sign knife is produced with the mouthing corresponding to the Italian word coltello (‘knife’).

 

 

 

         ‘coltello’

         knife

 

The phenomenon has been consistently observed with concrete verbs. However, it is also present with abstract verbs, possibly less systematically. We can observe the occurrence of the phenomenon with the abstract verb imagine in the following example.

 

 

 

                       lp

                      pc

         imagine

 

Conversely, in the example below we can observe that the noun image is accompanied by the mouthing corresponding to the Italian word immagine (‘image’).

        

 

 

         ‘immagine’         

         image