Attibutive signs in Argentine Sign Language: State verbs or Adjectives?

MARTÍNEZ, ROCÍO ANABEL

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Congreso; X High Desert Linguistic Society Conference; 2012

High Desert Linguistic Society, University of New Mexico

In this presentation I will focus on the group of signs known as state verbs(TO-BE-BLUE, TO-BE-INTERESTING) in the current Argentine Sign Language (LSA) classification from a cognitive perspective (Langacker 1987, 1991; Lakoff 1987). Massone and Machado (1994) and Curiel and Massone (1993) point out that these verbs have a vital role in the grammar as predicative signs: not only can they predicate directly -that is to say, without the verb to be-but they can function as attributive signs -the typical function of adjectives in English or Spanish-. I intend to reconsider the verb category of this group of signs given that several inaccuracies related to them have been detected in the current word class system in LSA. The main objective of this lecture is to present problems regarding state verbs in LSA such as the way of intensifying the meaning of these signs (VERY-BEAUTIFUL, VERY-TIRED) and the noun-state verb syntactic and semantic connection. I will put forward a new hypothesis to provide a better explanation for the phenomenon: the state verb class in LSA has an adjectival nature and, as a consequence, they must be considered symbolic structures whose semantic pole designate an atemporal relation, given that ?all members of a given class share fundamental semantic properties, and their semantic poles thus instantiate a single abstract schema subject to reasonably explicit characterization? (Langacker, 1987: 189).