4.1.2. Non-manual marking
The morphological strategies described in MORPHOLOGY 4.1.1 for inflectional nouns can be combined with dedicated mouthings or mouth gestures. For instance, the plural form of the sign house, derived through reduplication with dislocation (a) is marked by the mouthing of the vowel [a] (the first vowel of the corresponding Italian word casa) combined with furrowed eyebrows (fe). The plural form hour++ (b), instead, is marked by the vowel [o] (the first vowel in the corresponding Italian word ora) combined with squinted eyes (sq).
fe
[a]
a. house++ipsi
‘Houses’
sq
[o]
b. hour++
‘Hours’
Nouns articulated close or on the signer’s body generally do not allow overt inflectional processes due to phonological constraints. However, some nouns can be marked by a specific non-manual marking in order to convey plurality: the signer repeats the articulation of the nominal sign for at least three times, marks each articulation through a head nod (hn) and/or a non-manual displacement moving the head from left to right. To illustrate, we show below the occurrence of these morphological modifications affecting the sign woman in order to convey the meaning ‘women’.
a. woman
hn
b. woman++
‘Women’ (based on Pizzuto & Corazza, 1996: 182)
In order to convey plurality, the sign cat is repeated in the signing space and it is accompanied by non-manual displacement moving the head from left to right.
a. cat
b. cat++
‘Cats’
This strategy is detected only for some nouns: woman, man, cat, dog, mother and father. However, it is not obligatory, and it is usually employed to convey an additional emphatic meaning.
