A Grammar of German Sign Language (DGS)

The order of verb and object can correlate with the order of verb and other functional signs like agreement, tense and aspectual markers [Lexicon 3.3]. If the word order pattern is OV, functional elements often follow the verb. Whereas in languages with a VO pattern, functional elements tend to precede the verb.

 

The order of agreement, tense and aspectual markers in DGS shows dialectal variations. With regard to the agreement marker pam, it can occupy a preverbal position and following the subject as in example (a) or it occupies a postverbal position and appears sentence-finally as in (b).

 

a.       father_3b pam_3a grandmother_3a garden _3bshow_3a

         ‘Father shows grandma the garden.’

 

 

 

 

b.      new work^person++_3b poss_3bpl new boss_3a accept _3bpam_3a

              ‘The new employees accept their new boss.’

 

 

 

pam in DGS can occur with inflected agreement verbs as in the above mentioned example (a) or with agreement verbs that do not show overt agreement as in (b). Additionally, it is used with plain verbs that lack agreement marking as shown below.

 

         ix₁ new teacher_3a like ₁pam_3a

         ‘I like the new teacher.’

        

                                                                                              (based on Pfau et al., 2018:5)

 

 

 

Signers generally prefer pam (in combination with plain verbs) to occur with an animate object as in (a) or at least, with an inanimate object, which has a strong personal value for the signer as in (b).

 

a.       ix₁ poss₁ rabbit_{a 1}pam_a look_for

             ‘I am looking for my rabbit.’

 

 

 

 

b.      ix₁ poss₁ certificate_3a look_for ₁pam_3a

             ‘I am looking for my certificate.’

 

 

 

 

The sign pst is used as a past tense marker and its position within the clause and with respect to the verb can vary. pst ‘been’, similar to pam, can either be positioned sentence-finally as in example (a) or it can appear preverbally as shown in (b).

 

a.           poss₁ friend already ix(loc)_aamerica pst            

‘My friend was in America before.’

  

 

 

 

b.           frankfurt poss₁ train pst cancel

‘My train was canceled in Frankfurt.’

 

 

 

 

The aspectual marker finish [Morphology 3.3], however, always follows the verb and occurs sentence-finally as in the example below.

 

term_paper write finish

 ‘I wrote the term paper.’