A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

TİD does not have a manual sign that specifically marks a sentence as an imperative. palm-up is quite common in commands and instructions as a gesture but it is not obligatory. palm-up has the form of a Flat-Handshape with the palm facing upwards, and it occurs after the verb. When it occurs after a pause, it co-occurs with a single forward head tilt and the verb co-occurs with an optional eye blink.

          ix₂                                      why                              eat^

                                                  ht-f

not                               eat                                    palm-up

‘Why don’t you eat? Eat!’                                      

    (r.f. Özsoy et al. 2015: 16)

palm-up is usually signed with one hand but when it is preceded by a double-handed sign, it can also be signed with two hands.

          palm-up is generally used to express the signer’s impatience with the addressee or when the signer would like to convey to the addressee that s(he) is strongly obligated to carry out the action expressed by the command.