Path, process and (a)telicity in space: Motion predicates in LSCu, Sign Language of Cuba

Abstract

This paper examines the morphological properties of NMM for [mouth] and [eyegaze] and their association with the syntactic realization of the predicate’s subeventive structure. Two different NMM-[mouth] are identified, one for the process subevent ([uu]) and another for the telic subevent ([ph]). The systematic presence of these NMM-[mouth] as grammatical markers of subeventive structure confirms initial findings by Benedicto, Branchini, and Mantovan (2015) in favor of a deconstructivist approach to the predicate subeventive structure. NMM-[eyegaze] is shown to be associated with the argument of the respective subeventive structure: the Undergoer for the process subevent and the EndPoint for the telic subevent.