1.3.2.1. Manual signs

As shown in the examples provided in the previous section, and as confirmed by the use of palm_up in the Imperative-and-Declarative (IaD) construction described in SYNTAX 1.3.9, palm_up can occur with many different uses of the imperative.In this sense, it is not a pragmatic marker of command, but a grammatical marker of the imperative verb.

         movimp seems to have a more restricted distribution because it is used only when the addressee must move to a different position to obey a given command. Neither movimp nor palm_up are obligatory in interrogative sentences, as non-manuals are sufficient to signal the interrogative force. For example, the following video contains two imperative sentences. The first one (โ€˜wake up!โ€™) contains no manual marker of imperative force while the second one (โ€˜go to eat!โ€™) contains movimp.

 

 

 

                                                     fe

         ix2 wake_up.  eat movimp

         โ€˜Wake up! Go to eat!โ€™