In the previous section on verbs [LEXICON 3.2], the different verb classes were identified. We saw that most plain verbs cannot express agreement by means of verbal inflection. These verbs use a different strategy to express agreement: agreement markers.
LSC uses two different agreement markers: aux and aux_da. These markers support the lexical verb in expressing the agreement relation with arguments by means of movement and orientation features [MORPHOLOGY 3.1].
The first agreement marker (aux) is used to encode agreement with the subject and the object in sentences with plain verbs that need to indicate it.
a) 2aux1 forget?
‘Have you forgotten me?’
b) ix1 think woman ix3 3aux2 forget.
‘I think she has forgotten you.’
(examples a-b recreated from Quer et al., 2005)
Moreover, this sign can be also used with agreement verbs in order to clarify and emphasize the subject-object relationship. In these cases, the agreement verb can either maintain its basic, uninflected form (as in example b), or its agreeing form (as in example a).
a) ix3 wedding 3aux1 1invite3 know.not.
‘I don't know whether I'll be invited to his wedding.’
b) parents ix(poss)1 3aux1 allow term final trip.
‘My parents let me go to the end of term trip.’
(examples a-b recreated from Quer et al., 2005)
This marker can express all person combinations, and it is only used with animate arguments.
The second one, the agreement marker aux_da, is not only used to express agreement but it also expresses a causative-result meaning. This agreement marker only combines with psychological predicates, as is the case of nervous in the example below. Most of the times it occurs with a first-person argument subject or object, and it does not allow agreement between third person subject and object. Moreover, unlike aux, it can take inanimate subject arguments, such as exam in the example below.
exam 3aux_da1 nervous.
‘The exam makes me nervous.’
(based on Barberà, 2012: 93)
This LSC agreement marker (aux_da) has been grammaticalized from a lexical sign: the verb give (the mouthing that accompanies the sign (/da/) is related to the Spanish verb dar ‘to give’). By contrast, the agreement marker (aux) has been grammaticalized from two concatenated pronouns.