A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

As already announced, the signing space also plays an important function in the retrieval of previously introduced elements. In particular, agreement predicates allow the omission of the argument (SYNTAX 2.4.2), but they still guarantee the possibility to track back the correct entity.  In the example proposed below, the locations where the agreement verb is realised are spatially connected to the locations where the two subjects gianni and maria have been previously produced.

         gianni_a maria_b book _3aCL(flat open 5): ‘give_ book’_3b   

         ‘As for Gianni and Maria, he gave the book to her.’

The agreement verb give allows the omission of the subject and the object, since the referents were clearly established in the signing space. Another example displays a case of farther reference tracking.

         room kitchen_a mother CL(flat closed 5): ‘be_at’ exist, ix₁bathroom_{b a}go_b bgo_a disappear_a   

         ‘Mum was in the kitchen, I went to the bathroom and when I came back, she was gone.’

The referential entity mum, introduced in the first sentence, is retrieved in the second sentence despite the shift of the subject. This is possible because the verb of the second sentence, disappear, agrees with the location of the subject (mother).