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
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