Verb classes in South African Sign Language

Abstract This chapter presents a pioneer exploration of verb categories in South African Sign Language (SASL), using a corpus of authentic naturalistic narrative data. The paucity of linguistic descriptions of SASL meant that a theoretical basis for the study was derived using models developed for other sign languages, in particular those of Padden ( 1986 , 1988 , 1990 ), Johnston (1991) , and De Beuzeville et al. (2009) . The study also sought to explore whether verb classes can be distinguished in terms of gaze, head turns, body turns, location shift, nature of movement, emotive facial expressions, and explicitation of arguments, and how these parameters change during role-shift. The study finds that De Beuzeville et al.’s (2009) categorization provides the closest description for SASL verbs, but with a split in their ‘directional verbs’ category into agreement and motion verbs. A typology for SASL verbs is proposed and reflected upon in terms of teaching objectives.