A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Null subjects in LIS may occur both with plain and agreement verbs. The example below shows the possibility to omit the subject with a plain verb, such as eat. In this case, the addressee learnt from previous discourse that a student has studied a lot for her test, but she thinks she won’t pass it. At the canteen, she feels very worried about the test and all her thought is bent on it.

         eat neg_s nervous

         ‘(She) was too nervous to eat.’

Since it can be recovered from the previous context, the subject argument student can remain unexpressed.

         The example below shows subject omission with a backward agreement verb, take. According to previous context, Daniela is attending her history class, but she is not very interested in the topic.

         smartphone_{a 3}take_a scroll

         ‘(Daniela) took her smartphone and scrolled the screen.’

The subject argument daniela can be omitted since it is salient in the discourse.

         Recall that agreement in LIS can be optionally marked by non-manuals co-occurring with all verbal classes (i.e. plain, agreement, and spatial verbs). In particular, the head may tilt toward the location associated with the subject and the eye gaze may be directed toward the location associated with the object. If produced, these non-manual markers co-occur with the manual verb (SYNTAX 2.1.2.3.2). Contrary to what happens in other sign languages, in LIS null subjects are allowed regardless of whether agreement is marked non-manually or not. In the two examples discussed in this section, non-manual subject agreement (i.e. head tilt) is absent.