A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

In LIS, continuative aspect is conveyed through morphological modifications of the verb sign consisting in a longer duration of the articulation of the verb sign or in its repetition. The longer articulation indicates that an event lasts indefinitely in time, without precise information about when it starts/started and ends/ended (a). Repetition, instead, indicates that the same event is repeated for an indefinite time. The verb is repeated at least three times (b). Furthermore, the verb sign can be marked by specific non-manual markers consisting of furrowed eyebrows (fe) and puffed cheeks (pc) (b), or open mouth (om) conveying the indefinite duration of the event (a).

                                                            om

         a.       g-i-a-n-n-i window look_at                                         

         ‘Gianni is looking out of the window.’

                                     fe

                                    pc

         b.       study++

         ‘(S/he) studies/studied for an indefinite period of time.’