Plain verbs in signed languages

[Mark A. Mandel]

"Scholastica" (Nini Hoiting?) wrote:

#I am a research student who works on Hong Kong Sign Language. My focus of   
#study is verbs. I would like to confirm if plain verbs are generally
#unmarked for verb agreement and spatial locations.

Dan Slobin answered:

#By defnition, a "plain verb" is one that cannot move in space, and so it
#cannot mark agreement and spatial locations in itself.  But in many sign
#languages (including Sign Language of the Netherlands, Taiwanese Sign
#Language, and others), there are "auxiliary" verbs that accompany a "plain"
#verb.  Such accompanying verbs do move in space to indicate relations such
#as source-goal, agent-patient, and so forth.

Denise Wetzler added:

#In American Sign Language, verbs move. The movement itself contains a great
#amount of information. If want to show that I will go from my house to the
#bank and then to the library, these three locations are first established in
#the signing space. How I sign the verb 'go-to' then will show where I
#started from; went to; and where I ended up. [...]


It's essential to know what Scholastica means by "plain verb". Dan is evidently 
assuming that S. has the same definition for it that he does. 

A sign that does not move in space can nevertheless mark agreement with a 
spatial location, by its orientation and possibly its location as well. Example: 
ASL PITY (open-8 handshape, palm toward object, middle finger repeatedly 
bending).

Clarification of Denise's answer: in ASL, *many* verbs move [in space], but by 
no means all of them.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania
 
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