Sign languages are frequently described as having three verb classes. One, ‘agreeing’ verbs, indicates the
person/number of its subject and object by modification of the beginning and ending locations of the verb. The second, ‘spatial’
verbs, makes a similar appearing modification of verb movement to represent the source and goal locations of the theme of a verb
of motion. The third class, ‘plain’ verbs, is characterized as having neither of these types of modulations. A number of
researchers have proposed accounts that collapse all of these types, or the person-agreeing and spatial verbs. Here we present
evidence from late learners of American Sign Language and from the emergence of new sign languages that person agreement and
locative agreement have a different status in these conditions, and we claim their analysis should be kept distinct, at least in
certain ways.
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