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

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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 />6
Page 1 and 2: Quadros, Ronice Müller de. Phrase
Page 3 and 4: derivations. From a minimalist poin
Page 5: IX MARYb IX JOHNa aAUXb LIKE J
Page 9 and 10: These facts give support for a repr
Page 11 and 12: Considering Lasnik’s (1995) propo
Page 13 and 14: (36) a) ________________eyegaze affixes,
Page 19: PETRONIO, K. & LILLO-MARTIN, D. (19

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