Common Contracts
1 similar Number Agreement contracts
Number Agreement in a Sign LanguageNumber Agreement • December 8th, 2008
Several authors have described agreement in American Sign Language in terms of abstract features (Padden 1983; Bahan 1996), of locative case (Janis 1995) or relatively to a two- person (Meier 1990). However, others have questioned the relevance of the notion of agreement for ASL, on the basis that there is an infinite number of variations for the third person (Liddell 2000). We show that there are no paradigmatic features of agreement in sign languages, notably in Langue des Signes québécoise. Why is that so? To answer this question, we must understand how the differences in modality affect the functioning of agreement in the linguistic system of oral languages and gestural languages. We concentrate on the case of Number agreement in LSQ.
