A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

In classifier predicates (MORPHOLOGY5.1) the handshape classifier can help in retrieving the antecedent. In fact, these classifiers can identify a class of objects by representing iconically the properties of the entity they describe, such as shape, size or the way in which they are handled. Frequently, the use of classifiers is enough and no other referential means, such as pronouns, are needed in order to disambiguate their referents.

         The sentence below shows an example of these specific uses of classifiers. First, the sign cat and person++ are introduced. Then, the cat walks around, but the repetition of the sign cat is not necessary anymore. Indeed, the classifier CL(flat closed 5): ‘cat_walk’ is enough to track back the reference of the cat.

         cat ix_a hunger strong person++ bare. CL(flat closed 5): ‘cat_walk’ food look_for

         ‘The cat is very hungry. There is nobody around. He walks around looking for some food.’

The most commonly used types of predicative classifiers are entity classifiers (MORPHOLOGY 5.1.1), body part classifiers (MORPHOLOGY 5.1.2) and handle classifiers (MORPHOLOGY 5.1.3). On the other hand, Size and Shape Specifiers (SASS) (MORPHOLOGY 5.2) are not used for reference tracking.