A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

There is some evidence that an object clause marked by role shift is less integrated into the main clause than the corresponding object clause without role shift. This is suggested by the following contrast. In sentence (a) there is no role shift, therefore the third person pronoun ix₃ is used to refer to the matrix subject gianni. The object clause is fully integrated into the main clause, as shown by the fact that the entire sentence can be interpreted as a direct question, although the sign what is the object of the embedded clause. Sentence (b) is minimally different: as role shift occurs, gianni is referred to by the pronoun ix₁. However, the interpretation in which the entire sentence is interrogative is not possible. The sign q_artichoke can be interpreted only inside the embedded structure, as shown by the translation.

                                               re                                     wh

            a.         gianni_a ix_a say ix_3a buy q_artichoke

            ‘What did Gianni say that he bought?’

                                                                             wh

                                                                               rs

            b.         gianni say ix₁ buy q_artichoke

            ‘Gianni said: “What did I buy?”’