Phrase Structure of Brazilian Sign Language - Ronice.cce.prof.ufsc.br

Quadros, Ronice Müller de. Phrase Structure of Brazilian Sign Language. In Crosslinguistic<br />
perspectives in sign language research. Selected papers from TISLR 2000.<br />
Signum Press: Hamburg. 2003. p.141-162<br />
Phrase Structure of Brazilian Sign Language<br />
Ronice M. de Quadros i<br />
This work presents an overview of the syntactic structure of Brazilian<br />
Sign Language (LSB), with the main goal of outlining the architecture of the phrase<br />
structure of this language. This is accomplished by the investigation of basic word<br />
order and various syntactic operations 1 . It is shown that SVO is the underlying word<br />
order and that word order is influenced by the type of the verb that is used: plain or<br />
inflecting. The phrase structure proposed for Brazilian Sign Language combines two<br />
different approaches: (a) the functional projections of agreement and tense (AgrP-<br />
TP) for inflecting verbs and (b) the functional projection of only one inflectional<br />
category (IP) for plain verbs. I assume Lasnik’s (1995) proposal on the asymmetry<br />
between have and be and main verbs in English, explained by featural and affixal<br />
processes. Also, Bobaljik’s (1995) parameter of agreement functional projections is<br />
also incorporated into my analysis. He claims that if affixation and merger under<br />
adjacency take place in the derivation, syntax is blind to them; therefore, there will<br />
not be an agreement functional projection in the phrase structure. On the other hand,<br />
if there are feature affixes associated with verbs, they must be checked against<br />
projected agreement features at some point of the derivation. A combination of these<br />
two views delineates my proposal of verbal asymmetry observed in sign languages,<br />
such as LSB. In accordance with generative investigation, all grammaticality<br />
judgements used in our analysis were provided by native signers from the south of<br />
Brazil 2 .<br />
1 Word order<br />
There are two works that mention the flexibility of word order in<br />
LSB: Felipe (1989) and Ferreira-Brito (1995). They point out that this language has<br />
different possibilities for ordering the words in the sentence, but even with this<br />
flexibility, there seems to be a basic order of Subject – Verb – Object (SVO). I<br />
provide empirical support for this intuition and propose a representation of phrase<br />
structure for this language. The evidence comes from simple sentences, sentences<br />
with embedded clauses, sentences with adverbs, with modals and auxiliaries. The<br />
other word orders allowed in LSB result from the interaction of grammatical<br />
mechanisms such as the ones mentioned for ASL (Chen, 1998; Matsuoka, 1997;<br />
1 Non-manual markers are considered important to determine the structures under consideration. They<br />
follow, with the respective conventions for transcription: head nod for emphasis/focus (____hn); wh<br />
questions head movement and facial expression (____wh); negative head movement (____neg);<br />
topicalization facial expression (____top) and eyegaze associated with the direction of the hands<br />
and/or the direction established in agreement (____eg). Also used in the transcriptions is IX to<br />
indicate an index with a, b, c letters to indicate third persons incorporated in the verb and 1 and 2<br />
indicating the first and second persons respectively.<br />
2 A certain degree of regional variation in LSB exists, however, this variation was not a problem for<br />
my investigation, since I was concerned only with abstract representations of LSB phrase structure.

Braze, 1997; Fischer, 1975; Padden, 1990; Liddell 1980; Aarons, 1994; Lillo-Martin,<br />
1986). The conclusions of these studies of ASL include the following topics:<br />
• SVO is the underlying word order in ASL;<br />
• SOV order seems to follow from object shift because of the presence of handling<br />
verbs (Chen, 1998), aspectual verbs (Matsuoka, 1997; Braze, 1997), and<br />
agreement (Fischer, 1975); there are also special spatial-plain verbs with<br />
‘clitics’ and the possibility of analyzing a single case of SOV as consisting of<br />
three sentences instead of one (Padden, 1990);<br />
• OSV order follows from topicalization (Fischer 1975; Liddell 1980, Aarons,<br />
1994); object shift because of the presence of handling verbs (Chen, 1998) and<br />
aspectual verbs (Matsuoka, 1997; Braze, 1997);<br />
• (S)V(O) order follows from possible null arguments, because ASL is a pro-drop<br />
language (Lillo-Martin, 1986) 3 .<br />
I will consider some of these phenomena, since LSB shows OSV and<br />
SOV word orders besides SVO word order. The following facts give support to<br />
assume that SVO word order is the underlying order in LSB:<br />
(i) All SVO sentences are grammatical;<br />
(1) a) ______________eg<br />
JOHNa aWATCHb bTV (SVO)<br />
John watches TV.<br />
b) JOHN LIKE SOCCER (SVO)<br />
John likes soccer.<br />
Sentences like (1) are very natural in LSB and examples using this<br />
order are always considered grammatical.<br />
The (a) example from (1) has agreement signed on the verb. Also, this<br />
example has in common the special non-manual marker that is associated with the<br />
subject and object of the sentence. We see body shift and eyegaze toward the object<br />
from the subject. Eyegaze is marked in the glosses by the line over the sentence. It is<br />
important to clarify that it is possible to have other non-manual markers associated<br />
with each sentence. For example, head nod can be simultaneously associated with<br />
this example sentence. However, these other non-manuals are not obligatory. For our<br />
purpose, we are considering only eyegaze and body shift with non-plain verbs.<br />
This special non-manual marker that can combine eyegaze and body<br />
shift was first described by Bahan (1996) for ASL agreement non-manual markers.<br />
He observed that this non-manual marker cooccurs with the whole sentence when<br />
agreement is signed, while it is optional with sentences where no agreement is<br />
signed. It is interesting to analyze this special non-manual marker because it seems<br />
to behave similarly in LSB being associated with the asymmetry between plain and<br />
non-plain verbs discussed latter. Agreement together with the non-manual marker<br />
seems to be important for the occurrence of changes in the basic structure. It seems<br />
to have something to do with the information in the verb that licenses different<br />
3 Lillo-Martin (1986, 1991) shows that ASL is a pro-drop language and allows null subjects as well as<br />
null objects. In LSB, we observe the same distribution (Quadros, 1995).<br />
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derivations. From a minimalist point of view, it might be interpreted as indicating<br />
specific features of the verbs that license object movement to a higher position.<br />
Agreement seems to be one of these, as well as aspect (Fischer, 1975; Liddell, 1980;<br />
Matsuoka, 1997).<br />
This is illustrated in LSB through the next examples. The only<br />
difference that appears is the fact that in (1a), we may have the sentence signed with<br />
no special non-manual marker (eye gaze and body shift), even though this results in a<br />
slight degradation of the sentence’s acceptability. However, with orders other than<br />
SVO, sentences with agreement and no non-manual markers become much worse. In<br />
LSB, it seems that the non-manual marker brings an additional feature that licenses<br />
changes in the word order. This also gives support to the hypothesis that the basic<br />
word order in LSB is SVO.<br />
(ii) OSV and SOV word orders are allowed only when there is some special<br />
characteristic (or feature), such as agreement and the non-manual markers,<br />
including eye gaze or head nod:<br />
(2) a)_eg _____eg ________eg<br />
TVb JOHNa aWATCHb (OSV)<br />
b) __eg ________eg<br />
JOHNa TVb aWATCHb (SOV)<br />
a’) * TVb JOHNa aWATCHb (OSV)<br />
b’) * JOHNa TVb aWATCHb (SOV)<br />
John watches TV.<br />
(3) a) _________hn<br />
SOCCER JOHN LIKE (OSV)<br />
b) __________hn<br />
JOHN SOCCER LIKE (SOV)<br />
a’) *SOCCER JOHN LIKE (OSV)<br />
b') *JOHN SOCCER LIKE (SOV)<br />
John likes soccer.<br />
Comparing the sentences with the non-manual marker with sentences without the<br />
non-manual marker, we conclude that it is the special marker that allows constituents<br />
to be moved in LSB. In (1) we have different behavior that can be used as an<br />
argument in favor of the SVO basic order in LSB. If we assume this conclusion, then<br />
we can explain why (2a’, b') and (3a’, b') are ungrammatical sentences: examples<br />
(2a’, b') and (3a’, b') show us that movement of the object seems to be blocked,<br />
because there is no ‘force to push’ the movement; therefore any movement violates<br />
principles of economy, and the derivation crashes. This is not the case in (2a, b) and<br />
(3a, b), because these sentences have the non-manual marker that seems to have the<br />
feature that allows movement.<br />
2

(iii) There is no doubt about the interpretation of SVO sentences with ‘reversible’<br />
arguments, as there is with OSV and SOV word orders; however, the<br />
sentences containing such reversible arguments are considered unacceptable<br />
with transitive verbs because both arguments are interpreted as subject, and<br />
the object is eliminated (sentences in (4)) 4 . This is not the case with optional<br />
transitive verbs, since the sentences with ‘reversible’ arguments are<br />
ambiguous (sentences in (5));<br />
(4) a) _______ hn<br />
JOHN LIKE MARY (SVO)<br />
John likes Mary.<br />
b) _____________hn<br />
*JOHN MARY LIKE (OSV)<br />
(5) a) ____________hn<br />
LION RABBIT EAT<br />
Possible interpretations:<br />
(i) ∃x & ∃y (x is LION & y is RABBIT), x & y eat something – SV(O)<br />
(ii) ∃x (x is LION & y is RABBIT), x eats y - SOV<br />
b) ________hn<br />
RABBIT LION EAT<br />
Possible interpretations:<br />
(i) ∃x & ∃y (x is RABBIT & y is LION), x & y eat something – SV(O)<br />
(ii) ∃y (y is LION & x is RABBIT), y eats x - OSV<br />
Because these interpretations are possible, we exclude the possibility of a syntactic<br />
restriction on OSV and SOV word orders concerning reversible and non-reversible<br />
arguments. OSV and SOV word orders seem to be generated by movement from a<br />
syntactic point of view. The unacceptability of (4b) seems to be a result of the fact<br />
that LIKE is a transitive verb and, for semantic reasons, the only interpretation<br />
available is JOHN and MARY as subjects of the sentence; these sentences are<br />
excluded because of their lack of object. This is not the case with ‘non-reversible’<br />
arguments in which the semantic interpretation of grammatical relations is plausible<br />
such as in (5).<br />
(iv) The word orders OSV and SOV with reversible arguments in sentences with<br />
plain verbs need an auxiliary:<br />
(6) a) ___________eg _________________eg ___hn<br />
IX JOHNa IX MARYb aAUXb LIKE<br />
John likes Mary (aAUXb)<br />
b) __________eg ___________eg _____eg ___hn<br />
4 Fischer (1975) analyzed analogous examples in ASL to (4b) and (5) in LSB, as ungrammatical,<br />
because the object and the subject are ‘reversible’. JOHN and MARY are reversible because each one<br />
can be the subject or the object of the sentence, while JOHN and SOCCER are not in a sentence like<br />
JOHN LIKE SOCCER. She observed that if the object and the subject are non-reversible, changes in<br />
order can occur.<br />
3

IX MARYb IX JOHNa aAUXb LIKE<br />
John likes Mary (bAUXa)<br />
The behavior of AUX in LSB is quite similar to the auxiliaries in<br />
Taiwanese Sign Language - TSL - (Smith, 1990). Smith observed that there are three<br />
different auxiliaries in TSL. These appear in fixed positions before the main verbs<br />
with the primary function of conveying subject-object relationships. Moreover, these<br />
auxiliaries in TSL seem to have features-ϕ (like gender, number). The AUX in LSB<br />
is a pure expression of agreement by movement established from one point to<br />
another point (these points are those of the subject and the object of the sentence). It<br />
is not an independent lexical item, but an item that must be signed together with a<br />
plain verb, a verb that lacks agreement information. Through its direction of<br />
movement, the AUX expresses the relation established between the arguments of the<br />
sentence. It seems to compensate for the lack of agreement in these sentences. AUX<br />
is required only when the irregular word order has no way of identifying the subject<br />
and the object in a sentence with a plain verb. As with agreement verbs, the<br />
sentences in (6) need to be pronounced with non-manual marker. Following Lasnik’s<br />
proposal (1995a,b) for auxiliaries in English, in LSB it seems that the auxiliary AUX<br />
is in the head of IP position (or the head of TP, considering the split of IP into<br />
AgrSP, TP and AgrOP).<br />
(v) There is no extraction of the clausal object to a higher position in complex<br />
structures as it is possible in simple ones (examples (7) and (8)).<br />
(7) a) I THINK [IP MARYa aLEAVEloc].<br />
I think that Mary left.<br />
b) *I [IP MARYa aLEAVE] THINK.<br />
(8) a) I WANT [IP MARY WORK BETTER].<br />
I want Mary to work better.<br />
b) *I [IP MARY WORK BETTER] WANT.<br />
The sentences (7) and (8) show us that it is not possible to have SOV word order<br />
when the object is a subordinate clause, unlike what we have seen in simple<br />
sentences such as JOHN [SOCCER] hn and MARY [BOOK]<br />
eg/bs. (7) and (8) illustrate that the order SOV has an additional<br />
restriction, providing a strong argument again in favor of SVO as the basic word<br />
order in LSB.<br />
(vi) Temporal and frequency adverbs bring us the fact that there is a VP<br />
constituent in LSB that includes the verb and the object: [VP[V NP]]. This<br />
relationship cannot be interrupted by an adverb, an additional argument to<br />
conceive that SVO is the basic word order in LSB.<br />
(9) a) *JOHN [VP [V BUY [AdvP YESTERDAY [NP CAR]]].<br />
John bought a car yesterday.<br />
b) *I [VP [V DRINK [AdvP SOMETIMES [NP MILK]]]].<br />
4

Sometimes I drink milk.<br />
I assume that temporal adverbs are right- or left-adjoined to IP (AgrP) and frequency<br />
adverbs are right- or left-adjoined to VP (as shown in (10) and (11) respectively).<br />
(10) a) JOHN BUY CAR YESTERDAY.<br />
b) YESTERDAY JOHN BUY CAR.<br />
c) *JOHN YESTERDAY BUY CAR.<br />
John bought a car yesterday.<br />
(11) a) I DRINK MILK SOMETIMES.<br />
b) I SOMETIMES DRINK MILK.<br />
c)?? SOMETIMES I DRINK MILK.<br />
Sometimes I drink milk.<br />
(vii) Topicalization allows changes in the word order 5<br />
A possible explanation to the ‘apparent free word order’ in LSB is related to a<br />
topicalization phenomenon where there is a specific non-manual marker associated<br />
with the topic. Topicalization in LSB is marked with raised brows and the head tilted<br />
slightly back followed by a head nod (if the sentence is affirmative), or by a negative<br />
nod (if the sentence is negative), or still by a question non-manual marker (if the<br />
sentence is an interrogative). The following examples illustrate each of these cases.<br />
(12) ________topic _____________hn<br />
SOCCER, IXJOHN LIKE<br />
As for soccer, John likes it.<br />
(13) _______topic ___________________neg<br />
SOCCER, IXJOHN DESIRE NO<br />
As for soccer, John does not like it.<br />
(14) ________topic _____________y/n<br />
SOCCER, IXJOHN LIKE<br />
As for soccer, does John like it?<br />
(15) ___________topic ___________________________wh<br />
SOCCER-BALL, WHERE IXJOHNa GET<br />
As for soccer ball, where will John get it?<br />
(viii) Focus allows changes in the word orders with plain verbs<br />
In LSB, there is a kind of construction with double elements. In this sentences, there<br />
is an emphasis associated with these double constituents: 'JOHN NEVER GO<br />
NEVER' (John never went to that place). In ASL, Petronio and Lillo-Martin (1997)<br />
restrict the ‘double construction’ “to sentences in which a significant pause does not<br />
5 I do not discuss here in detail the topic, focus and object shift constructions, since this is not the<br />
point for the present proposal. These discussions are detailed in my Ph.D. Dissertation (Quadros,<br />
1999).<br />
5

precede the final ‘double’. When there is a significant pause, the construction has<br />
different syntactic properties” (footnote 12). This note makes a distinction between<br />
focus constructions on the one hand, and constructions such as tag questions and use<br />
of the discourse strategies to confirm some part of the sentence on the other hand.<br />
These researchers pointed out double constructions in ASL to explain why subject<br />
wh-question can appear in final position (‘WHO BUY C-A-R WHO’, from which we<br />
can derive ‘BUY C-A-R WHO’ in ASL). Like ASL, LSB shows double<br />
constructions with modals, quantifiers and verbs. In addition, it is very common to<br />
have a double construction with wh-questions, negation and adverbs. For my<br />
proposal in this paper, I will show only double constructions with verbs:<br />
________hn<br />
(16) IX LOSE BOOK LOSE<br />
I LOST the book<br />
There is a Focus Phrase (FP) functional category projected to allow this kind of<br />
construction in LSB. That is, there is a full projection of focus between CP and IP as<br />
in Portuguese (Kato and Raposo, 1994) and Korean (Kim, 1997). This position is<br />
projected when accented information with interpretation in PF and LF is inserted in<br />
the structure in the head position associated with a strong [+focus] feature. This<br />
strong feature must check and be checked for the feature associated with the stressed<br />
element in the phrase, i.e., IP (or AgrSP) which is also associated with a [+focus]<br />
feature. Therefore, IP will raise (extraposition of IP) to Spec of FP to check its<br />
feature with the head F associated with [+focus]. This is an instance of obligatory<br />
movement in LSB. The [+focus] feature also licenses null elements that meet the<br />
requirement of identity with the head of FP as shown through the following example:<br />
________hn<br />
(17) IX LOSE BOOK LOSE<br />
I LOST the book<br />
Focus constructions in LSB explains the difference between SOV derivations with<br />
plain and non-plain verbs. When we have SOV with a plain verb, in fact, we do not<br />
actually have SOV word order in LSB, but S(V)OV. The final verb is just the<br />
doubled verb that permits the omission of the first verb in the sentence, a null<br />
element licensed by [+focus]. This final verb is marked with a final head nod as<br />
observed in almost every instance of focus. On the other hand, with non-plain-verbs<br />
we explained this word order through object shift. This different analysis for these<br />
two kind of verbs in LSB is explained by the asymmetry discussed in the next<br />
section. There is no instances of SVOV with non-plain-verbs.<br />
(ix) Object shift allows changes in the word orders with non-plain verbs<br />
The word order SOV with a non-plain verb is obligatorily associated with an<br />
agreement non-manual marker. This word order results from short verb movement<br />
and short object movement to AgrO and to Spec of AgrOP, respectively, an option<br />
that is not available for plain verbs (since it projects an IP construction as discussed<br />
later). Considering this analysis, we explain the different behavior of the double<br />
construction between plain and non-plain verbs. The following representation<br />
captures the fact stated above and confirms that there is at least short movement in<br />
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this language to agreement projections following Holmberg’s (1986)<br />
generalization 67 .<br />
(18) [AgrSP [AgrS’ [TP MARYa [T’ [AgrIOP JOHNbi [AgrIO’ aGIVEbj [AgrDOP [AgrDO’ BOOKl<br />
[VP ti [V’ tj [DP tl ]]]]]]]]<br />
Mary gave the book to John<br />
(x) Modals also provide evidence to the basic word order in LSB. They can<br />
occupy a position to the right and/or to the left of IP: (i) modals may not<br />
break up the VP constituent; (ii) modals can be doubled as a result of a<br />
double construction ; and (iii) as a consequence of (ii), a modal in the original<br />
position can be null (for OSV and SOV word order: OS(M)VM, S(M)OVM;<br />
for SVO word order: S(M)VOM).<br />
(xi) (S)V(O) order follows from possible null arguments, because LSB is a prodrop<br />
language (Quadros, 1995)<br />
(19) aGIVEb<br />
(she/he) gives to (her/him)<br />
(xii) Other combinations such as VSO, OVS and VOS are not possible in LSB,<br />
even in the presence of a special marker.<br />
Until now, it seems that SVO is the underlying word order in LSB,<br />
and that OSV and SOV word orders are derived from SVO. In particular, I have seen<br />
that these orders result from syntactic operations motivated by some additional<br />
feature, like agreement or non-manual markers. I have not discussed the specific<br />
operations because this is not the proposal for the present paper.<br />
The following table summarizes the findings:<br />
Table 1 Distribution of word order in LSB<br />
WORD ORDER YES NO WITH<br />
SVO X<br />
RESTRICTION<br />
OSV X<br />
SOV X<br />
VOS X<br />
OVS X<br />
VSO X<br />
6 This conclusion will give support for the asymmetry between plain and non-plain verbs in my<br />
analysis. When we consider the characteristics from Non-Free-Agr languages and plain verbs in the<br />
next step, this point will become clearer.<br />
7 Note that in French, NegP must be higher than AgrO. This difference follows because French verbs<br />
raise overtly to T.<br />
7

These facts give support for a representation of the phrase structure as<br />
a head initial language. However, there is a clear asymmetry between sentences with<br />
plain verbs and non-plain verbs. I have not made any distinctions so far, but this is a<br />
fact that requires special attention. This is the next step of my work.<br />
2 Asymmetry of two verbal classes<br />
I analyzed the facts related to the two kinds of verbs in LSB, plain<br />
verbs and inflecting verbs (non-plain verbs), which seem to have different behavior<br />
in their phrase structure. This difference is clearly recognized at the morphological<br />
level. However, I analyze possible consequences from this asymmetry for the<br />
syntactic structure. I assume Lasnik’s (1995) proposal on the asymmetry between<br />
have and be and main verbs in English, explained by featural and affixal processes.<br />
Lasnik claims that verbs can be taken from the lexicon either inflected or bare. If<br />
they are introduced fully inflected, Infl is featural, following Chomsky’s proposal in<br />
the minimalist approach. If verbs are introduced bare, their inflectional affixes are<br />
introduced separately under Infl, and the association of affixes with the verb goes<br />
through a PF operation called Merge, restricted by the adjacency requirement. This<br />
approach follows the spirit of Chomsky’s (1957) proposal. Bobaljik’s (1995)<br />
parameter of agreement functional projection is also incorporated into my analysis.<br />
He claims that if affixation and merger under adjacency take place in the derivation,<br />
syntax is blind to them; therefore, there will not be an agreement functional<br />
projection in the phrase structure. On the other hand, if there are feature affixes<br />
associated with the verbs, they must be checked against projected agreement features<br />
at some point of the derivation. A combination of these two views delineates my<br />
proposal of verbal asymmetry observed in sign languages, such as LSB. As a<br />
consequence, a revision of phrase structure in LSB is needed.<br />
Let us look at the facts that show the asymmetry between the verbs<br />
that present inflection and the ones that do not in LSB.<br />
(xiii) Sentences with agreement verbs seem to have more freedom in the structure<br />
than those with plain verbs:<br />
(20) a) ____________eyegaze<br />
MARYb JOHNa aLOOKb (OSV)<br />
John looks Mary.<br />
b) _____________eyegaze<br />
*JOHN MARY LIKE (OSV)<br />
Mary likes John.<br />
(xiv) Non-manual markers are obligatory with agreement verbs and optional with<br />
plain verbs:<br />
(21) a) ____________eyegaze<br />
JOHN LIKE MARY.<br />
John likes Mary.<br />
8

) JOHN LIKE MARY.<br />
c) _______eyegaze<br />
*JOHN MARY LIKE<br />
(22) a) ____________eyegaze<br />
JOHN aHELPb MARY.<br />
John helps Mary.<br />
b) ??JOHN aHELPb MARY.<br />
c) _______eyegaze<br />
JOHN MARY aHELPb<br />
(xv) Null arguments with agreement verbs take place in different syntactic<br />
contexts from the ones that are allowed in sentences with plain verbs:<br />
(23) _________eyegaze<br />
TOMORROW 2GIVEa BOOK.<br />
(You) give (her) the book tomorrow.<br />
(24) a) *TOMORROW TALK<br />
a’) TOMORROW IX(you) TALK IX(her)<br />
b) ______eyegaze<br />
*TOMORROW TALK<br />
b’) ______eyegaze<br />
TOMORROW IX(you) TALK IX(her)<br />
(You) talk with (her) tomorrow.<br />
It is important to mention that the examples (24 a, b) can be considered grammatical<br />
in discourse contexts that make the arguments clear. This is expected, since there<br />
seems to have ‘discourse-licensed’ null arguments in LSB (see Lillo-Martin (1986)<br />
for details about this analysis for ASL).<br />
(xvi) There is a different negation distribution between sentences with plain verbs<br />
and agreement verbs:<br />
(25) ____________neg<br />
JOHNa NO aGIVEb BOOK<br />
John does not give the book to (her).<br />
(26) ___________neg<br />
*JOHN NO DESIRE CAR<br />
John does not like the car.<br />
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Considering Lasnik’s (1995) proposal for verbal morphology, I<br />
checked the analogy between main verbs in English and plain verbs in LSB. Main<br />
verbs, as affixal verbs in English, present the following characteristics 8 :<br />
(xvii) Main verbs can not precede negation (*John likes not Mary). The same is<br />
observed in LSB:<br />
(27) ____________neg<br />
*JOHN DESIRE NO CAR 9<br />
(xviii) Main verbs can not follow the negation without do-support (*John not likes<br />
Mary and John does not like Mary). This is also observed in LSB. With<br />
negation preceding an agreement verb the sentence is fine (example (28)), but<br />
with a plain verb the sentence will be fine only with an AUX (examples (29)<br />
and (30)):<br />
(28) ____________neg<br />
JOHNa NO aGIVEb BOOK<br />
(29) ___________neg<br />
*JOHN NO DESIRE CAR<br />
(30) _________neg<br />
JOHNa aAUXb pro NO DESIRE.<br />
John does not like (her).<br />
(xix) Main verbs can not precede adverbs that are adjoined to the left of VP (*John<br />
plays always soccer). In LSB, this is also observed:<br />
(31) *JOHN BUY ALWAYS CANDIES 10 .<br />
John always buys candies.<br />
(xx) Main verbs can be elided from complex sentences through identity with their<br />
bare form (John slept, and Mary will too). This happens in the same way in<br />
LSB:<br />
(32) a) _______eg ____hn _____eg ___neg<br />
aMARY bJOHN aAUXb [LIKE]i, bAUXa NOT [e]i<br />
Mary likes John and (he) does not.<br />
_____eg ___hn ____eg ____hn<br />
b) aMARY bJOHN aAUXb [LIKE]i, bAUXa TOO [e]i<br />
8 English examples from Lasnik (1995).<br />
9 However, this distribution is always ungrammatical, even with agreement verbs, since the VP-unit is<br />
broken. Recall that verbs in LSB do not move overtly. The best examples to show the contrast<br />
between plain and non-plain verbs as well as to show the analogy between plain verbs and main verbs<br />
in English are sentences that present a virtual affix, in which the negation will block adjacency<br />
between T and V, and therefore the sentence will crash (see below this analysis).<br />
10 Again, this is not good evidence to show differences between plain and non-plain verbs. I have seen<br />
that adverb distribution is the same for both plain and agreement verbs. Temporal adverbs are right-<br />
or left-adjoined to IP, and frequency adverbs are right- or left-adjoined to VP. Therefore, the position<br />
between the verb and the object will always be ungrammatical.<br />
10

Mary likes John and he does also.<br />
_____eg ___hn ____eg ___hn<br />
c) *aMARY bJOHN aAUXb [LIKE]i, JOHN TOO [e]I<br />
Mary likes John and he also.<br />
In LSB, ellipsis without an auxiliary is not allowed:<br />
__hn<br />
(33) a) *JOHN LIKE MARY, MARY TOO.<br />
John likes Mary and Mary also<br />
____eg ___hn<br />
b) bJOHN LIKE aMARY, aAUXb TOO<br />
John likes Mary and (she) does also.<br />
I have seen so far that plain verbs behave in the same way as main<br />
verbs in English. That is, following Lasnik’s proposal, these verbs are affixal and<br />
must merge with their respective affixes as a consequence of a phonological<br />
requirement under adjacency. I also observed in (18) that the affixal approach can<br />
not explain the lexical negation that takes place in sentences with inflecting verbs,<br />
which suggests the existence of an asymmetry. If I am on the right track, I must now<br />
explain how the structure works with inflecting verbs. Let us see if there is an<br />
analogy between inflecting verbs and the featural approach for verbal morphology<br />
presented by Lasnik (1995).<br />
The featural approach observed with auxiliaries in English and main<br />
verbs in French, as well as in Swedish, presents the following characteristics:<br />
(xxi) These verbs precede negation when they have “strong” features and follow<br />
negation when they have “weak” ones (the first case is observed in English<br />
and French: John has no idea about the game and Jean (n’)aime pas Marie;<br />
the second case is observed in Swedish, …, om hon inte ofta har sett<br />
honnom) 11 . This also is observed in LSB with agreement verbs (examples<br />
(34) and (35)):<br />
(34) ______________________neg/eg<br />
JOHNa NO aGIVEb BOOK MARYb.<br />
John did not give the book to Mary.<br />
(35) _______________neg/eg<br />
JOHNa NO bCARRY-BOXc.<br />
John did not carry the box (from here to there).<br />
(xxii) Verbs as have and be in English do not need do-support (John has no idea<br />
about the game results). Considering AUX in LSB as something similar to<br />
do-support the same distribution is observed (example (36)):<br />
11<br />
Glosses to French and Swedish examples respectively:<br />
John likes not Mary<br />
…, whether she not often has seen him<br />
11

(36) a) ________________eyegaze<br />
*JOHNa MARYb aAUXb aMEETb<br />
b) ___eyegaze __________eyegaze<br />
* MARYb JOHNa aAUXb aCALLb<br />
(xxiii) Verbs as in French precede adverbs adjoined to the left of VP when they have<br />
strong features to be checked (Jean embrasse souvent Marie) 12 .<br />
(37) *IX JOHN BUY YESTERDAY CAR<br />
(38) * IX JOHN MEET ALREADY MARYb<br />
(xxiv) Verbs as have and be in English can not be elided from complex sentences<br />
because there is no identity between the verb in the main clause and the<br />
elided verb (*John is here, and Mary will too). On the other hand, these verbs<br />
can be elided when there is something present in the sentence that guarantees<br />
the identity between them and their antecedent (John will be here, and Mary<br />
will be too). These facts can also be observed in LSB as shown in the<br />
examples (39) and (40):<br />
(39) a) __________________hn ________hn<br />
_________eyegaze<br />
MARY CAN [aGIVEb BOOK]i, I TOO CAN [e]i<br />
Mary can give the book (to someone), I can also<br />
b) __________________hn _________hn<br />
_________eyegaze<br />
MARY WANT [aGIVEb BOOK]i, I TOO WANT [e]i<br />
Mary wants to give (to someone) the book, I want too<br />
(40) a) __________hn _______hn<br />
_________eyegaze<br />
*MARY aGIVEb BOOK, I TOO WILL<br />
__________hn _______hn<br />
_________eyegaze<br />
b) *MARY aGIVEb BOOK, I TOO WANT.<br />
In LSB, a modal guarantees the identity between the elided verb and<br />
its antecedent.<br />
I have enough evidence to assume that plain verbs have a virtual affix<br />
that requires adjacency and that inflecting verbs (agreement and spatial verbs) are<br />
inserted fully-inflected from the lexicon.<br />
12 Glosses to French example:<br />
John kisses often Mary<br />
12

The proposal is based on the featural and affixal approaches<br />
developed by Lasnik (1995), and also on the morphological parameter proposed by<br />
Bobaljik (1995). I relate these analyses and present the phrase structures in LSB that<br />
account for the asymmetric behavior of the verbs. This approach is compatible with<br />
the minimalist program, since phrase structure is projected as a consequence of the<br />
interface motivations for meaning and sound/sign. Moreover, I state two general<br />
assumptions. First, all main sentences in LSB are tensed, as assumed by Aarons,<br />
Bahan, Kegl and Neidle – ABKN – (1995) for ASL, and therefore there is a<br />
functional projection for tense. There are some lexical items that are generated in this<br />
position, such as tense markers 13 . This assumption allows the subject to be basegenerated<br />
in Spec of T, then it will observe the EPP, since the subject position will<br />
be filled out, the second assumption made here (following Bobaljik, 1995). Bobaljik<br />
shows that there are enough reasons to assume Koizumi’s (1993) and Chomsky’s<br />
(1995) proposals that the subject must be generated outside of VP. He also observed,<br />
however, that there is no reason to stipulate the split of VP, as done by the original<br />
approaches.<br />
The basic idea put forward by Bobaljik (1995) is that some languages<br />
project agreement and tense, because there are agreement and tense features that<br />
must be checked during the derivation (Free-Agreement languages). Other languages<br />
solely project inflection for checking related to agreement or tense (Non-Free-<br />
Agreement languages). I suggest that there are also languages which can set both<br />
possibilities. This is caused by the existence of features related to both kinds of<br />
information in different verbal classes. For instance, main verbs in English are<br />
affixal, and there is no Agr projection, whereas French verbs, have and be in English,<br />
and inflected verbs in LSB do present AgrP. The grammar has the two options<br />
available and one and/or the other will be set considering the features inserted with<br />
the lexical items during Numeration.<br />
One of the characteristics observed by Bobaljik for languages that do<br />
project agreement is that in these languages there is a target in the phrase structure<br />
for possible object-shift when the verb moves to a higher position overtly (observing<br />
Holmberg’s generalization, 1986).<br />
LSB, as well as ASL, allows object shift. Independent motivations for<br />
this movement have not been analyzed for LSB yet. As for ASL, Matsuoka (1998),<br />
Braze (ongoing) and Chen (ongoing) have provided some explanations. I give some<br />
examples to show that object-shift is a common syntactic operation in these<br />
languages.<br />
(41) ASL<br />
a) [AgrSP [AgrS’ [TP WOMAN [T’ [AgrOP PIE i [AgrO’ PUT-IN-OVENj [VP ti [V’ tj ]]]]]]]]<br />
The woman put the pie in the oven<br />
(42) LSB 14<br />
a) _________________eyegaze ______hn<br />
13<br />
This assumption must be investigated more deeply, since there is no morphological marker for<br />
tense attached to the verb.<br />
14<br />
In these LSB examples, I assume the V raises to AgrO. When the V moves, the object may move to<br />
Spec of AgrOP. This explains the word order SVO with agreement verbs including handling verbs.<br />
13

[AgrSP [AgrS’ [TP MARYa [T’ [AgrOP JOHNb i [AgrO’ aGIVEb j [VP ti [V’ tj [DP BOOK]]]]]]]]]<br />
Mary given to John the book<br />
b) ________________eyegaze<br />
[AgrSP [AgrS’ [TP MARY [T’ [AgrOP PIE i [AgrO’ PUT-IN-OVENj [VP ti [V’ tj ]]]]]]]]<br />
Mary put the pie in the oven<br />
Free-Agr languages must present a target position for object<br />
movement related to the agreement projection. This is what I observe, since, on the<br />
other hand, with plain verbs (that I assume generate a non-Free Agreement<br />
representation), object shift is not allowed in the same contexts, even in the presence<br />
of a non-manual marker. Object-shift with plain verbs is allowed when there is an<br />
Aspect Projection or other projections, but not in cases analogous to object-shift with<br />
inflecting verbs (agreement and spatial verbs). As I have said before, these sentences<br />
must have non-manual markers related to agreement, as claimed by Bahan (1996) for<br />
ASL. This is said to provide evidence for agreement projection, because there are Vfeatures<br />
related to this projection that need to be checked.<br />
Another characteristic pointed out by Bobaljik for Free-Agr languages<br />
is that agreement and tense can co-occur in these languages, unlike Non-Free<br />
Agreement languages in which these elements are in complementary distribution.<br />
The data that follow show LSB co-occurrence of Agr and T with non-plain verbs in<br />
(43b) and the ungrammaticality of this co-occurrence with plain verbs. Also, I add<br />
some examples from Brazilian Portuguese, Icelandic and English.<br />
(43) LSB<br />
a) _______eyeg/body shift<br />
* JOHN MARY [I [FUTURE-TNS/aAUXb] ] CALL<br />
John will call Mary. 15<br />
b) _____eyeg/body shift<br />
JOHN [T FUTURE-TNS [Agr [aGIVEb]]] BOOK<br />
John will give the book (to her).<br />
(44) Brazilian Portuguese<br />
a) Ela/ele comeu [3 rd singular person, past tense]<br />
She/he ate<br />
b) Nós comemos [1 st plural person, present tense]<br />
We ate<br />
(45) Icelandic (Bobaljik, 1995:264)<br />
kasta-oi-r (past tense, second singular agreement)<br />
throw-past-2s<br />
5 The sentence with only FUTURE present would be grammatical:<br />
_______eg<br />
* JOHN MARY [I [FUTURE-TNS] ] CALL<br />
It seems that the position can be occupied by only one element realized or by the virtual affix.<br />
14

(46) English<br />
a) She/he likes (agreement)<br />
b) She/he liked (past tense)<br />
c) *She/he likesed (agreement, past tense)<br />
The final characteristic that I want to discuss is presented by Bobaljik<br />
for Non-Free Agr languages. He shows that in these languages, verbs surface in V,<br />
since they are adjacent to the inflection projection. Although this is hard to see in<br />
LSB, I assume the existence of a virtual affix that must be adjacent to V. The<br />
examples that follow present the structure assumed for plain verbs.<br />
(47) English (Bobaljik, 1995:272, example number (7))<br />
[IP [D(P) Sam [I’ [I [past] [VP [V eat [D(P) lunch]]]]]]]<br />
Sam ate lunch<br />
(48) LSB<br />
[IP [D(P) JOHN [I’ [I [∅] [VP [V EAT [D(P) RICE]]]]]]]<br />
John eats rice.<br />
3 Phrase Structures of LSB<br />
Based on the evidence discussed up to this point, I assume that there<br />
are two possible representations that languages can access: the functional projection<br />
of agreement and tense, as proposed in the spirit of Pollock (1989), and the<br />
functional projection of only one inflection category IP, in the spirit of Chomsky<br />
(1995). Instead of putting these two analyses in opposition, I put them together to<br />
capture different behavior of languages. Actually, this is a natural result from the<br />
minimalist point of view, since projections result from features that have some<br />
independent motivation from the interfaces. When there is no motivation, there is no<br />
reason to have a functional projection. Also, I assume both possibilities for LSB,<br />
since there are plain verbs that activate an affixal approach, and inflecting verbs that<br />
activate a featural approach (as is the case with English (Lasnik, 1995)). The relation<br />
that I establish between these two analyses is in accord with the minimalist<br />
investigation that is based on economy principles.<br />
Figure 1 – Phrase Structure Projected with Plain Verbs<br />
IP<br />
Spec I’<br />
Position in which<br />
The subject is generated<br />
I VP<br />
15

Position occupied by<br />
affixes, modals and tense markers<br />
AGRsP<br />
Spec AGRs’<br />
Position<br />
for the subject<br />
AGRs TP<br />
Position in which<br />
agreement with<br />
the subject will<br />
be checked<br />
Spec T’<br />
4 References<br />
V DP<br />
Position occupied by<br />
Position occupied by the verb the object<br />
Figure 2 – Phrase Structure Projected wit Inflected Verbs<br />
T AGRoP<br />
Position that can be<br />
occupied by modals,<br />
auxiliary and tense<br />
Spec AGRo’<br />
Position occupied<br />
by the object when it raises<br />
AGRo VP<br />
Position in which agreement with<br />
the object will be checked<br />
V DP<br />
Position occupied by the verb<br />
Position occupied by the<br />
object when it doesn't move<br />
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Boston University, Boston, MA.<br />
AARONS, D.; BAHAN, B.; KEGL, J.; NEIDLE, C. (1995) Lexical Tense Markers in<br />
American Sign Language. In: Language, Gesture and Space. Emmorey,K. and Reilly, J.<br />
S. (eds.). Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.<br />
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Working Papers in Linguistics.<br />
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manuscript. University of Connecticut.<br />
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Bromberger. MIT. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1-52.<br />
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the Deaf Child. Paper presented at the Winter Meeting of the Linguistic Society of<br />
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17

PETRONIO, K. & LILLO-MARTIN, D. (1996) WH Movement and the Spec of CP:<br />
Evidence from American Sign Language. In Languages.<br />
POLLOCK, J.Y. Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the Structure of IP. In Linguistic<br />
Inquiry. Volume 20. Number 3. Summer. 1989. 365-424.<br />
QUADROS, R. M. de. (1995) As categorias vazias pronominais:uma análise alternativa<br />
com base na língua de sinais brasileira e reflexos no processo de aquisição. Dissertação<br />
de Mestrado. PUCRS. Porto Alegre.<br />
QUADROS, R. M. de Phrase Structure of Brazilian Sign Language. Tese de Doutorado.<br />
PUC/RS. Porto Alegre. 1999.<br />
SMITH, W. H. Evidence for auxiliaries in Taiwan Sign Language. In Theoretical Issues in<br />
Sign Language Research. Suzan D. Fischer and Patricia Siple (ed.) Volume 1:<br />
Linguistics. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago. 1990.<br />
i The present work is part of the requirements for my PhD degree at Pontíficia Universidade Católica do RS/Brasil (Quadros,<br />
1999). It had been elaborated at the University of Connecticut under Dr. Diane Lillo-Martin’s supervision to whom I am very<br />
thankful. Also, I am grateful to my supervisor in Brazil, Dr. Jorge Campos. I am very thankful to Deborah Chen for always<br />
being ready to help me with my English and above all for being my friend. I cannot miss to mention my colleagues and friends<br />
Gaurav Mathur, Ingrid Finger and Stephanie Berk with whom I enjoy to exchange ideas about my work, and professors Howard<br />
Lasnik, Zeijko Boskovic, and Diane Lillo-Martin, with whom I had the opportunity to learn a lot from during my stay at<br />
University of Connecticut. Needless to say, I am fully responsible for all errors. Suggestions and comments are welcome. Please<br />
e-mail me at ronice@cpovo.net<br />
18