A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

In LIS, it is possible to express negation also with n-words, also called negative quantifiers. There are two n-words: nobody and nothing: their meaning is very similar to the one of the two corresponding English words. nobody is a two-handed sign, with the same handshape and orientation of the sign not, but it is performed with a single movement from the centre of the neutral space to the outside.

 

 

 

                neg

         nobody

 

nothing is very similar to the sign not_yet; it has the same configuration and orientation, but a different movement: small circles are created with the two hands.

 

 

 

                 neg

         nothing

 

Examples of sentences containing the signs nobody (a) and nothing (b) are shown below.

 

 

 

                                                                              neg

         a.            contract_a put_signature_a ix_a nobody

         ‘Nobody signed the contract.’ (adapted from Geraci, 2006a: 5)

 

 

 

                                                                  neg

         b.            gianni put_signature nothing

         ‘Gianni signed nothing.’ (adapted from Geraci, 2006a: 5)

 

The presence of a n-word is sufficient to provide the sentence with a negative meaning.

Even if they are arguments of the verb (they can be the sentence subject or object), negative quantifiers do not occur in the canonical position devoted to verbal arguments. Their canonical position is postverbal (like negative particles). For example, the n-word nobody is the subject in the sentence contract put_signature ix nobody reported above, but it does not appear in the canonical position of subjects (preverbal). The same holds for the sign nothing. In the sentence gianni put_signature nothing reported above, a direct object naturally appears before the verb, but, being an n-word, the sign nothing must follow the verb.

         The only case in which it is possible to find a n-word in a preverbal position is when the negative non-manual markers distribute to the right, also covering the other elements of the sentence, as in the following example.

 

                                                                     hs

         nobody contract put_signature

         ‘Nobody signed the contract.’ (Geraci, 2006a: 5)

 

nobody can be used as a determiner as well, in this case it selects a noun phrase, as we can see in the example below where nobody refers to the noun phrase child.

 

 

 

                                         neg

         ix₁ child++ see nobody

         ‘I don’t see any children.’

 

In LIS, there is a very common negative adverb, that is never. It is a two-handed sign, that shares the same movement and orientation with the sign nobody, but a different handshape, I instead of G.

 

 

 

         never

 

The sign never alone is able to convey a negative meaning to the sentence and its position is postverbal, as in the example below.

 

 

 

                                                               neg

         gianni contract put_signature never

         ‘Gianni never signed the contract.’