A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

In LIS, the pronoun copying phenomenon takes place when a pronoun refers to an argument realized within the same clause. The argument of a verb appears in its regular position, but it is copied by a pronominal index (ix), agreeing in space with the referred argument. ix most often appears in clause final position. The sentence below shows an example of pronoun copying.

         ix₃ pizza eat done ix₃

         ‘He has eaten pizza, he.’

It is important to distinguish between pronoun copying and doubling. Doubling is observed when the same category is (partially) repeated twice in different positions in the sentence.  Doubling does not need to involve ix. In LIS, for example, it is possible to have the repetition of the interrogative wh-elements, such as what, who, how, where (SYNTAX 1.2.3.7). An example of this is shown in the sentence below.

                                                           wh

         q_artichoke today eat q_artichoke

         ‘What do you eat today, what?’

When pronoun copying and wh-element take place in the same sentence, the pronoun copying (ix) seems to precede the final interrogative. The example below shows one of these situations.

                                                   wh

         book ix₂ want ix₂ which

         ‘Which book do you want, you?’