Besides employing classifiers (MORPHOLOGY 5), information of localisation and spatial distribution can be conveyed through overt morphological modifications of the articulation of the noun sign, which can be i) dislocated within the signing space, thus being articulated in a point of the signing space which is different from the point of articulation of the sign in its citation form, and/or ii) reduplicated. Reduplication simultaneously conveys information of both number and position, without the articulation of other elements (such as quantifiers or classifiers). In such cases, the loci of the signing space do not have grammatical functions of marking the arguments of the predicates, but they define the position of referents, thus space has an isomorphic function. In the example below, the signer specifies both number and position of the three boxes, without recurring to numerals or quantifiers.
boxa boxb boxc
‘A box on the right, one in the middle, and one on the left.’
When nouns cannot be displaced within the signing space due to phonological constraints (point of articulation or complex movement), to convey localisation and distribution they occur with pointing signs (LEXICON 3.7) or classifiers, which position them within the signing space (MORPHOLOGY 5) thus functioning as proforms. For instance, the sign motorcycle (a) is a two-handed asymmetrical sign that needs an entity classifier to display both features of number and localisation, through the incorporation of a sideward movement. The sign for pen, instead, is one of those signs whose reduplication carries verbal meaning (MORPHOLOGY 4.1.1), therefore it needs a classifier to be reduplicated and located in the signing space, as in (b).
a. motorcycle CL(3): ‘vehicle_be_located’ipsi
‘The motorcycles are (parked) there.’
b. pen CL(G): ‘pen_be_located’++
‘There are many pens on the table.’