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Article published In:
Impersonal human reference in Sign Languages
Edited by Gemma Barberà and Patricia Cabredo Hofherr
[Sign Language & Linguistics 21:2] 2018
► pp. 334–348
Special issue articles

Agent-backgrounding in Catalan Sign Language (LSC)

| Universitat Pompeu Fabra
| CNRS UMR 7023/Université Paris 8 (UPL)
| Universitat Pompeu Fabra | ICREA

This paper examines backgrounding strategies for human agents in Catalan Sign Language, that is, constructions featuring human agents that are non-referential. We identify and analyze four types of agent-backgrounding strategies: subjectless constructions, indefinite pronouns, the impersonal axis, and general nouns. Extending on previous work, we offer a description and a semantico-pragmatic analysis of each construction.

Keywords: backgrounding, Catalan Sign Language (LSC), impersonal axis, indefinite pronoun, impersonal reference, R-impersonals, generic human nouns
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
  • 3.Backgrounding strategies
    • 3.1No lexical subject
    • 3.2Indefinite pronouns
    • 3.3Impersonal axis
    • 3.4Lexical subjects
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives (CC BY-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 22 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.00023.bar
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