A Grammar of Catalan Sign Language (LSC)

3.2.2. Agreement verbs

As mentioned in LEXICON 3.2, agreement verbs can change its form depending on the arguments of the sentence. Namely, they change the direction of the movement path, and sometimes the orientation of the hand, the palm or the fingers, depending on locations associated with the subject and the object of the sentence. In this way they mark agreement with the subject and the object of the sentence when they refer to animate entities.

Agreement verbs can be divided into different subtypes. Four subclasses of agreement verbs have been attested in LSC: (1) regular agreement verbs, (2) backward agreement verbs, and (3) reciprocal agreement verbs.

In regular agreement verbs, the movement of the sign begins at the subject location and ends at the object location, as we can see in the examples below. In example (a) below, the subject is first person, so the movement starts at the body of the signer, and the object is third person, so the movement ends in the area of signing space where the third person is located. By contrast, in example (b) below, the movement begins in the location in the signing space where the subject has been located, and ends in the object location, namely, the one associated with the signer.

a) ix(poss)₁ father hat ₁give_gift₃.

‘I gave a hat to my father.’

b) ix(poss)₁ sister book ₃give_gift₁.

‘My sister gave a book to me.’

In both examples, the verb gives information about the subject and the object by displaying a trajectory movement, namely, the start and end points of the path movement indicate the grammatical subject and object, respectively.

Other regular agreement verbs do not display such path movement but, instead, they show agreement of the subject with the object by changing the orientation of the fingertips or the hand palm. In these verbs, the fingertips or the palm of the hand are always oriented towards the object, as illustrated in (a) and (b) below.

a) everyday ix₁ work finish ix(poss)₁grandmother ₁take_care₃.

‘I take care of my grandmother every day after work.’

b) past ix₁ ex child school class finish then grandmother ₃take_care₁.

‘When I was a child my grandmother used to take care of me after classes.’

It is important to notice that regular agreement verbs usually agree with the locations of the subject and the object of the sentence (if transitive, with the direct object, as with take_care; if ditransitive, with the indirect object, as with help).

Some regular agreement verbs are body-anchored, namely they are articulated at a particular location of the body. In these verbs, different parts of the body of the signer can serve as a point of articulation: the forehead, the nose, the cheeks, the mouth, the chin, the ear, the neck, or the chest. Some examples are the verbs give_advice, infect, or phone.

Contrary to regular agreement verbs, in backward agreement verbs the path movement begins at the object location instead of the subject one, and it ends at the subject location. Some common verbs in this category are take, choose, buy, call_for, copy, invite, steal, guess, collect_taxes, among others.

_y/n

a) tennis partner couple ix_{1 1}choose₃.

‘Would you choose me as your tennis partner?’

b) yesterday restauranta ix_a cl(x)_b ‘menu’ pasta _bchoose₁.

‘Yesterday at the restaurant I chose pasta.’

It is also important to notice that although the path movement is realized backwards, the fingertips are still oriented towards the object. Moreover, backward agreement verbs usually agree with locations the subject and the object of the sentence through path movement. For instance, in the previous examples the verb choose agrees with both the subject and the direct object.

There are also some agreement verbs that have a body-anchored first component, like the verb ask.

a) teacher ix₃ ix_{1 3}ask₁ topic++ important list-2 two important.

‘In class, I asked my teacher two important questions.’

b) ix(poss)₂ bossa ₂_aask₃ topic space change allow?

‘Have you asked your boss if you can change your (work) space?

In the examples above both the basic form and the agreement form of the verb ask begin at the chin of the signer but does not express agreement, which is encoded by the path movement of the verb.

Lastly, reciprocal agreement verbs are a type of agreement verbs that can be used in its reciprocal form when the subject is plural and its referents are both interpreted as subject and object at the same time.

both understand_{recp(1, 2).}

‘We understand each other very well.’

In this type of verbs, the sign changes its form from one-handed to two-handed in order to express the reciprocal meaning. Moreover, each hand is agreeing with the referents in opposite distribution of subject and object roles, so the path movement and orientation of each hand are inverse with respect to each other. Some reciprocal forms are understand-each-other, attract-each-other, call-each-other, see-each-other, never-want-to-see-each-other-again.

Some agreement verbs only exist in their reciprocal form, so they are always two-handed, like, for instance, argue, agree, meet, consult, contact, discuss_in_group.

morning all ix_1pl debate++.

‘We were debating the whole morning.’

List of regular agreement verbs:

say
narrate/explain
inform
order
inherit
give
give_gift
teach
pay
name1
name2
advise
accuse
oblige
send_letter
show
subsidize
ask_for
answer
call
win/be_superior
cheat
scold
defend
arrest
pester
fire1
fire2
fire3
train
annoy
punish
sms
bribe
chase
discriminate_against
motivate
fax
recommend
say_no
tease
allow
let_know
vote
insult
help
infect
correct
take_care
influence
spoil
bite
ignore
obsess
hate
harm
press
look
affiliate
include
abandon
examine
research
attack
corner
affect
surround
photograph
reject
miss
support