Verbal Predicates in Flemish Sign Language (VGT) and South African Sign Language (SASL)

The study reported on in this presentation fits in with a larger project on the differences and similarities between SASL and VGT and between the South African Deaf Community and the Flemish Deaf Community. The grammatical part of the project involves a cross-linguistic comparison of a number of grammatical mechanisms and structures, using a corpus of similar VGT and SASL-data of a various nature. The overall goal is to contribute to a further understanding of the issue of the degree of similarity between unrelated sign languages however, the different studies also mean a further exploration of the grammars of the two languages involved. In this presentation we focus on a small part of the study of constituent order, i.e. on sentences with two or more elements which at first sight seem to function like verbal predicates. We present a cross-linguistic analysis of these sentences and try to determine the grammatical/typological status of the verbal-like elements. The study shows that there are important similarities between the two sign languages studied, some of which were not really expected since they are unrelated, but at the same time it also shows that there are remarkable differences. More importantly, it shows that the verbal categories that are traditionally proposed for sign languages (e.g. plain verbs, agreement/indicating verbs, etc.) may need to be revisited.status: publishe