When BEAT is ‘exceed’: verbal comparison in American Sign Language

Autor/a: WILBUR, Ronnie B.; ABNER, Natasha; WOOD, Sandra; KOULIDOBROVA, Helen
Año: 2018
Editorial: Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign language Theory, Vol. 1 pp. 59-69
Tipo de código: ISSN
Soporte: Digital

Temas

Lingüística » Lingüística de otras Lenguas de Signos

Detalles

One  strategy  for  expressing comparison  in American Sign Language is the verbal predicate BEAT, which parallels exceeds comparatives documented in spoken languages but  heretofore  not in sign  languages.  It  expresses  non-identity of  two  referents  on a graded scale with a transitive verb  as a morpho-syntactic marker. The standard of comparison serves as object and the comparee as subject. Clausal  arguments aremallowed as standards and comparees. In documenting the BEATcomparative, we expand typological understanding of comparatives and of sign languages, highlighting syntactic and semantic properties of BEAT comparatives relative to other comparison expressions.