Plain verbs in signed languages

[I.Zwitserlood]

Dear Scholastica,

Uou touch on an important issue here. It seems as if "plain verbs" in 
a sign language are taken to be a fixed group of verbs that never 
show any agreement, whereas "agreement verbs" do show agreement and 
"spatial verbs" also show agreement, though in a different way from 
agreement verbs. However, it is also observed that verbs that are 
reported (e.g. in the literature or dictionaries) to be "agreement 
verbs" are used without showing agreement (viz. there is a lot of 
variability in the use of agreement). E.g. In discourses in Sign 
Language of the Netherlands (NGT) we sometimes see verbs that can 
show agreement, used without agreement or only carrying a subset of 
the possible agreement markers. Sometimes they are accompanied by an 
auxiliary carrying the agreement marking, but not always. Also we see 
that verbs that are reported to be "plain verbs" sometimes do show 
agreement. It is by no means clear when, how and why the agreement 
marking varies, no systematic studies have been done on NGT so far. 
During the CISLR conference in Cologne last year Diane Lillo-Martin 
and Adam Schembri also report unexpected agreement patterns in ASL 
(children) and Auslan (adults), respectively.
I'm not sure whether this answers your question, but I think it is 
important to notice that the issue of sign language agreement is by 
no means clear yet and needs a lot more study. As you plan to do. Good luck!

Inge Zwitserlood
Radboud University Nijmegen


At 17:53 8-1-2008, you wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>I think I need to rephrase my question. Sorry for any 
>misunderstandings caused.
>
>I tried to adopt Padden's (1983, 1988) verb classification for my 
>HKSL data. Yet I want to clarify the notion plain verbs. I wonder if 
>what have been called plain verbs may not be really "plain" in terms 
>of morphology (e.g. verb agreement, aspect, etc) when more studies 
>are done on ASL and other signed languages.
>
>Did anyone observe that the so-called plain verbs may actually be 
>marked with morphemes in signed languages?
>
>Scholastica
>
>"Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu> wrote:
>"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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