A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Reason clauses in LIS are introduced by the sign glossed reason, as in the following sentence.

         gianni car drive CL(closed 5): ‘car_bump_and_stop’ reason fuel exhaust

         ‘Gianni was driving, his car bumped and stopped because there was no fuel left.’

Reason clauses have the make-up of finite declarative clauses, as shown by the fact that the verb can be inflected. For example, in the following reason clause the verb snow is reduplicated to indicate continuative aspect.

         tram arrive late reason snow++ CL(5): ‘snow_accumulate’

         ‘The tram arrived late because it continued to snow, and the snow accumulated.’

Reason clauses can indicate the relation of causation between the event in the reason clause and the event in the main clause, as in the example above, where the snowing caused the delay of the tram. However, they can also indicate the reason why the speaker has a certain belief. For example, the following sentence was elicited as a comment to a visual narrative in which a person stayed with a swimsuit in the snow and subsequently got sick.

         boy ix stupid reason boast. outside snow cold body naked only swimsuit. boast after worse sick

         ‘That boy is stupid because he is a braggart. It was cold and snowing but he stayed outside with only a swimsuit. He was acting cool, but later he got sick.’

In this sentence, the reason clause can be naturally interpreted as indicating the reason why the speaker thinks that the boy is stupid, namely the fact that he behaved as a braggart in the snow.