A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

A case of non-verbal predication is the possibility for an adjectival phrase to predicate something of an argument. In the example below, the property of ‘(being) nice’ is predicated of the argument ‘Pietro’.

 

 

 

         pietro nice

         ‘Pietro is nice.’

 

In LIS, copular constructions lack the presence of a copula, as opposed to the English translation of the sentence above.

         A copular sentence, as the one above, is predicative when it ascribes a property to an argument. A copular sentence may also be specificational, when it specifies something of an argument. In the following sentence, the copular sentence specifies who the best student is.

 

 

 

         student best a-d-a

         ‘The best student is Ada.’

 

There are cases in which the distinction between a predicational and a specificational reading of the copular sentence is difficult to establish. This is the case of the following English sentence: ‘His lunch is food for the dog’. In the predicational reading, this sentence means ‘his lunch serves as food for the dog’. In LIS, this interpretation corresponds to the following sentence.

 

 

 

         lunch food poss(G)₃ type dog

         ‘His lunch is like food for the dog.’

 

In the specificational reading, the English sentence above means ‘he eats food for the dog for his lunch’. In LIS, this interpretation has a different output, as shown in the sentence below.

 

 

 

         lunch ix_3a food poss(G)_3a pe_3a dog poss(5)_3b

         ‘His lunch is the food for dogs.’

 

Another type of copular sentences is the locative sentence. In the following copular sentence, what is predicated of the argument ‘Paride’ concerns his location in space. Again, no copula surfaces.

 

 

 

         paride school

         ‘Paride is at school.’