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Imperatives and Directive Strategies
Edited by Daniël Van Olmen and Simone Heinold
[Studies in Language Companion Series 184] 2017
► pp. 111–156

Searching for imperatives in European sign languages

| Labex EFL-University of Paris 7 Diderot
| CNRS-University of Paris 8
| University of Venice Ca’ Foscari
| University of Milan Bicocca
| Institut Jean Nicod ENS Paris
| ICREA-Pompeu Fabra University

This article presents the first results of a pilot project aiming at analyzing how European sign languages realize a syntactic domain that is very solid, likely to be grammaticalized in any language but very poorly described or not described at all for sign languages: the imperative. Our innovative approach covers the characterization of the manual and non-manual components that identify imperatives in Italian, French and Catalan Sign Language, together with a number of other properties typically associated with imperative clauses in spoken languages.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Looking for imperatives in sign languages: How to start
    • 2.1Commands? The Polish Sign Language (PJM) experience
    • 2.2Commands are not (necessarily) imperatives
    • 2.3Imperatives are not (necessarily) commands
  • 3.The formal properties of imperatives across spoken languages
    • 3.1Null and quantificational subjects in imperatives
    • 3.2A defective paradigm: Exhortative constructions
    • 3.3Reduced morphology
    • 3.4A marked word order
    • 3.5Negation
    • 3.6Embedding
    • 3.7Distinguishing the various uses: Prosody and other markers
    • 3.8Imperative + Declarative: A litmus test for imperative?
    • 3.9Incompatibility with non-volitional verbs
  • 4.Modality specificities
  • 5.Data elicitation
  • 6.Imperatives in Italian Sign Language
    • 6.1Manual markers of the imperative
    • 6.2Non-manual markers of the imperative
    • 6.3Testing specific properties of the imperative
      • 6.3.1Incompatibility with non-volitional verbs
      • 6.3.2Negation
      • 6.3.3Subjects
      • 6.3.4Imperative + Declarative constructions
    • 6.4Summary
  • 7.Imperatives in French Sign Language
    • 7.1Manual markers of the imperative
    • 7.2Non-manual markers of the imperative
    • 7.3Testing specific properties of the imperative
      • 7.3.1Subjects
      • 7.3.2Imperative + Declarative constructions
      • 7.3.3Embedding the imperative
  • 7.4Summary
  • 8.Imperatives in Catalan Sign Language
    • 8.1Manual markers of the imperative
    • 8.2Non-manual markers of the imperative
    • 8.3Testing specific properties of the imperative
      • 8.3.1Marked word order
      • 8.3.2Negation
      • 8.3.3Subjects
      • 8.3.4Imperative + Declarative constructions
    • 8.4Summary
  • 9.Conclusions
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 11 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.184.04don
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