A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

In LIS, a third strategy can be used to distinguish the subject from the object, namely pronoun copy (LEXICON 3.7.2). In LIS a pronoun in sentence final position may refer back to the subject (especially if the subject precedes the object).

 

 

 

         child_a pizza eat done ix_3a

         ‘The child ate the pizza, she.’

 

The pronoun copying the subject can also be accompanied by non-manuals, but it does not need to. However, a light movement of the body appears, opposite to the signing space where the subject has been located.

         The subject which is copied by the sentence final pronoun can be a full noun phrase, as in the example above, or a pronoun as shown in (a) below. The example in (b) below is different because there is no overt subject in the initial position, so no copying in the literal sense. However, if we consider that LIS admits null subjects (SYNTAX 2.2.1.4; SYNTAX 2.4.1), we can hypothesise that the pronoun in final position in (b) is a copy of the null subject.

 

 

 

         a.            ix₃ pizza eat done ix₃

         ‘He has eaten the pizza, he.’

 

 

 

         b.            pizza want ix₃

         ‘He likes pizza.’

 

Although pronoun copying seems to mostly refer to subjects, in some special sentences the object can be copied as well. This can happen if the object is fronted, as in the example below.

 

 

 

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         chocolate_a gianni_{3b 3b}hate_3a ix_3a

         ‘Chocolate, he hates it.’

 

This syntactic flexibility allows us to suppose that copy pronouns pragmatically refer to topicalised elements (PRAGMATICS 4.2) in LIS, regardless of their syntactic role. This diagnostic should therefore be applied with caution if used to detect the syntactic function of an element in the sentence.