Classifier Predicates and the Creation of Multiple Perspectives in South African Sign Language

Abstract

This article examines some of the options that South African Sign Language offers for the representation of multiple perspectives on an event. The authors focus on picture descriptions that use classifier predicates. They show that signers use constructed action in conjunction with classifier predicates to create simultaneous multiple perspectives on an event. Signers also use classifier predicates and constructed action sequentially to shift perspectives back and forth within an utterance. The authors conclude that the modality of space allows users of a sign language to apply several active articulators simultaneously to communicate multiple perspectives on an event; the differences in the representational repertoire of the articulators allow perspective changes to follow one another rapidly.