Grammar
IPSL shares grammatical features with many other deaf sign languages, including the use of space and simultaneity and the five meaningful parameters of handshape, location, orientation, movement and non-manual features such as body position, head movement and facial expression. Some specifics are described by sign language linguist Ulrike Zeshan in her study of IPSL grammar:
| “ | Sentences are always predicate final, and all of the signs from the open lexical classes can function as predicates. Ellipsis is extensive, and one-word sentences are common. There is a strong preference for sentences with only one lexical argument. Constituent order does not play any role in the marking of grammatical relations. These are coded exclusively by spatial mechanisms (e.g., directional signs) or inferred from the context. Temporal expressions usually come first in the sentence, and if there is a functional particle, it always follows the predicate (e.g., YESTERDAY FATHER DIE COMPLETIVE — "(My) father died yesterday"). | ” |
Read more about this topic: Indo-Pakistani Sign Language
Famous quotes containing the word grammar:
“Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Hence, a generative grammar must be a system of rules that can iterate to generate an indefinitely large number of structures. This system of rules can be analyzed into the three major components of a generative grammar: the syntactic, phonological, and semantic components.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Grammar is a tricky, inconsistent thing. Being the backbone of speech and writing, it should, we think, be eminently logical, make perfect sense, like the human skeleton. But, of course, the skeleton is arbitrary, too. Why twelve pairs of ribs rather than eleven or thirteen? Why thirty-two teeth? It has something to do with evolution and functionalism—but only sometimes, not always. So there are aspects of grammar that make good, logical sense, and others that do not.”
—John Simon (b. 1925)