A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

The signing space can be used arbitrarily in order to place referents within the discourse. Some verbs, changing direction or movement, agree with the loci associated with their arguments. Indeed, spatial verbal agreement (MORPHOLOGY 3.1) is used as a co-referential mean. Often, the antecedent is previously realised in a specific point of the signing space, therefore overt co-referential elements can be omitted in the following sentences without giving rise to ambiguity. The example below shows a case of spatial verbal agreement used without explicit anaphoric forms.

         luca_a CL(flat_closed 5): ‘be_at_a’ giovanni_b CL(flat_closed 5): ‘be_at_b’. book red _bCL(flat open 5): ‘give_book’_a

         ‘There are Luca and Giovanni. He (Luca) gives him (to Giovanni) a red book.’

Sometimes, spatial verbs (LEXICON 3.2.3) agree with topographic locations instead of arguments. The topographic use of space iconically expresses the spatial relation among referents like in the example below, where the classifier predicate CL(closed 5): ‘open _door’ is directed towards the door.

         CL(closed 5): ‘open_door’ palm_up

         ‘Open it (the door)!’

In the sentence above, the verb is signed in the direction of the door, but neither the linguistic expression door, nor an overt linguistic realisation of the referent has ever been mentioned by the signer. As in verbal agreement, spatial verbs are still cases of reference tracking where the co-reference of topographic locations is realised through spatial agreement.