Ser, estar and ficar in portuguese sign linguage and european portuguese

Abstract

Predicative sentences have been the object of many studies for oral languages (OL), both in Syntax and Semantics: in Syntax, particularly because there are languages with null copula; in Semantics, because there are languages sensitive to the individual / stage-level nature of the predicate, as is the case of Portuguese and Spanish verbs ser / estar. In linguistic studies on sign languages, predicative sentences have received much less attention. In this paper, we center our attention on predicative sentences with adjectives and nominals, on the one hand, and those with locatives, on the other hand, as we compare Portuguese and Portuguese Sign Language (LGP) and other Sign Languages. While in Portuguese, verbs such as ser, estar, ficar, seem to have a predicative nature and to always be expressed, despite the difference between the category and the semantic nature of their predicates, in LGP the differences are much more pronounced. Data indicates that there is a null copula for ser - although two forms have been produced, sou and não-sou -, which probably announces a process of grammaticalization. fic ar and estar are null copulas with non-locative predicates (individual or stage-level), either with adjectives or nominals, but they are expressed with locatives. The verb estar is expressed with simultaneous mouthing /lala/ ('there-there'), and may co-occur with a locative index in several constructions. The complexity of the productions suggests a full nature of the verb estar and fic ar, closer to spatial verbs than to copulas.