A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Some adjectives can have arguments, i.e. constituents they select. Both the adjectival head and its argument are included in the adjectival phrase.

         In LIS, the argument taken by the adjective can be of different types (SYNTAX 2.1.2). The adjectives in the examples below take a noun phrase as argument: envious selects a pronoun (a), while full selects a noun (b).

         a.            envious  ix₃_person

         ‘Envious of her/him’

         b.            money        full

         ‘Full of money’

If the argument is a pronoun, as in (a) above, signers allow both orders (i.e. adjective + argument and argument + adjective). If the argument is a full noun, as in (b) above, the preferred order is argument + adjective.

         Below, we present examples containing the adjectives proud (a) and curious (b). Both of them take clausal arguments.

         a.            kid_a ix_a high_school_diploma promote father proud

         ‘The father is proud that his son has obtained the high school diploma.’

         b.            politician earn how_many person_a ix_a curious

         ‘That person is curious how much politicians earn.’

Although other orderings are possible, LIS signers tend to produce clausal arguments before the related adjective, as shown above.