A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

An example of direct polar interrogative in LIS is provided below.

 

 

 

                   y/n

         sick ix₂

         ‘Are you sick?’

 

An example of indirect polar interrogative is shown below.

 

 

 

                                            y/n

         ix₁ think gianni sick

         ‘I wonder whether Gianni is sick.’

 

Polar interrogatives may differ from declaratives only for the presence of certain non-manual markers. For example, the two sentences below are distinguished only non-manually:  the yes/no non-manual marking (raised eyebrows) is absent in the declarative (a) and present in the polar interrogative (b).

 

 

 

         a.            ix₃ cinema go

         ‘He will go the cinema.’

 

 

 

                                                  y/n

          b.            ix₃ cinema go

         ‘Will he go to the cinema?’      

 

However, polar interrogatives may be distinguished from declaratives also by the presence of the sign yes^no in sentence final position.

 

 

 

                                            y/n

          ix₂ pizza want yes^no

         ‘Do you want pizza?’    

 

In polar interrogatives, the subject pronoun naturally occurs at the end of the sentence.

 

 

 

                               y/n

         pizza want ix₂ 

         ‘Do you want pizza?’

 

The subject pronoun can be doubled, namely it can occur both at the beginning and at the end of the sentence. This happens in the following question, in which a modification of non-manual marking denotes surprise for the fact that the interlocutor is eating pizza (but doubling does not seem to be restricted to these cases).

 

 

 

                                     y/n

         ix₂ pizza want ix₂       

         ‘Do you want pizza?’