The category of person in Catalan Sign Language (LSC) personal pronouns

Abstract

Summary: Pronouns can carry grammatical information about their antecedents, most commonly person, number and gender. Although a lot of research has been devoted to exploring the features that sign language pronouns specify, whether or not they encode grammatical distinctions among first, second and third person remains a matter of discussion. However, most studies have focused on singular forms only, and much less attention has been paid to their plural counterparts. Based on the analysis of Catalan Sign Language (LSC) data, this paper aims to contribute to the debate by describing the articulation of the full paradigm of personal pronouns, that is, explicitly integrating non-singular forms in the investigation. Ultimately, this study argues in favor of a threeperson analysis of pronouns in LSC, showing that it is possible to account for the different marking of first, second and third person by using a modified version of Berenz’s (1996) Body Coordinates Model. Keywords: personal pronouns, Catalan Sign Language (LSC), person markers, duals and collective plurals, body coordinates model, pronominal typologies