modifiability of indicating verbs

[Allen Gardner]

Guarav Mathur

 

Please could you send more complete citations of the two articles
mentioned 

In your post?

 

Very interested,

 

Allen Gardner

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] On Behalf Of Gaurav
Mathur
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 8:18 AM
To: slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Subject: [SLLING-L] Re: modifiability of indicating verbs

 

 

Christian Rathmann and I have been following the recent discussion  

with interest, because we have been interested in finding out under  

which conditions a verb can be modulated for person and number. In  

our work, we suggest that semantic factors (i.e. argument structure)  

predict which verbs are candidates for being modulated for agreement  

(i.e. selecting for two animate arguments), and that a number of  

further factors, including phonological phonetic, discourse-related  

and historical, determine whether this agreement is realized.

 

So, instead of asking whether a verb is plain or agreeing, it may  

make better sense to ask whether they are *candidates* for being  

modulated for agreement (or for indicating entities) or not. This  

would be one way to get around saying that verb agreement is not  

obligatory (as has been suggested here) and therefore not directly  

comparable to agreement systems in spoken languages like Spanish or  

German.

 

The ASL sign PITY that was given earlier as an example is a case in  

point. It is a candidate for agreement, because it selects for two  

animate arguments (a person who is doing the pitying and the person  

who is being pitied). It can be modulated for person and number by  

changing the orientation of the hands. In this case, the modulation  

does not necessarily mean that the hands move from one location to  

another.

 

For more details, see our paper "Is verb agreement the same cross- 

modally" in Meier, Cormier and Quinto-Pozos

(2002) as well as "Verb agreement as a linguistic innovation in  

signed languages" in Quer's volume based on TISLR8 (in press).

 

Best,

Gaurav

 

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