Determining the basic order of constituents in a main declarative clause is tied to the criteria of frequency, simplicity, morphological markedness and pragmatic neutrality. Hence, basic word order refers to the most common simple, declarative, active clause with less morphological marking that occurs in pragmatically neutral contexts. An example of a simple main declarative clause in DGS is given below. In this example, the verb tease shows person agreement [Morphology 3.1] by modulating path movement and finger- and hand orientation and thus clearly identifies subject and object. The back of hand is orientated towards the subject (‘boy’) and the fingertips are orientated toward the object (‘girl’).
boy3a girl3b 3atease3b
‘The boy teases the girl.’