A Grammar of Catalan Sign Language (LSC)

Continuative or durative aspect indicates that an event is taking place over a long and uninterrupted time interval. The continuative and durative aspect thus focuses on the development of an action at the moment in which it is taking place. In order to express this type of aspect LSC uses different strategies that depend on the type of verb stem.

As we see in the example below, this aspect type can be indicated by reduplicating the verb stem. This strategy applies to verbs that already have a repeated movement. In the example below, the verb is repeated more times and the repetitions are slower than in its citation form.

 

 

 

 

ix₃ book write+++.

‘He's writing a book.’                                                             

(recreated from Quer et al., 2005)

 

In verbs that involve a trajectory movement, continuative aspect is expressed by a vibration and a slowdown in the movement. An example of this strategy is shown below.

 

fly_by_plane _dur                                                                

(based on Ribera, 2015: 27)

 

Lastly, signs that do not display any movement, like for instance, love, sleep or like, express continuative aspect with a prolongation of the duration of the sign.

 

sleep_dur

 (based on Ribera, 2015: 298)

 

Moreover, continuative aspect can also be marked with the mouth gesture [l-l-l], as shown in the examples below.

                                 [l-l-l]

a)    chicken cook+++.

‘The chicken is being cooked.’

(recreated from Quer et al., 2005)

 

                                                                       [l-l-l]

b)    week past all_week snow snow snow.

‘Last week it snowed all the time.’

(recreated from Quer et al., 2005)

 

For the purpose of emphasizing the duration of the action or state expressed by the verb, LSC uses typically NMMs, such as the mouth gestures [aaa] or [l-l-l].

                                                                  [aaa]

a)    today morning all rain+++.

‘It's been raining all morning.’

(recreated from Quer et al., 2005)

 

                                                     [l-l-l]

b)    past ix_{1 1}see₃ cl(C): ‘poster’ today disappear_suddenly.

‘I've been seeing that poster all morning and now it's not there all of a sudden.’

(recreated from Quer et al., 2005)

 

Moreover, some signs are accompanied by other NMMs that express a reinforcement meaning, especially mouth gestures such as [l-l-l], ‘kiss’, ‘protruded tongue’, [zzz], ‘blow’, [aaa].

 

All the aspect interpretations listed above can also be expressed by means of manual signs [LEXICON 3.3.2].