These typological characteristics are exactly what we should consider if we are to better understand the interaction between language and modality. In particular, I would like to look at the issue of classification here. The system of agreements described by LM-M is unique in that only one class of verbs is identified in a sign language given for the people`s convention, the class of contractual verbs. Other verbs in the language are not marked for a correspondence or marked as “ocative” (the so-called spatial verbs). Adherence to the class of concordance verbs is semantically determined; Overall, transmission, whether concrete or abstract (Meir 2001, 2002). Although languages may be different in terms of the classification of certain verbs, in all sign languages that have this system, there is a nucleus of verbs that designate transmission (. B for example GIVE, SEND, TAKE, HELP, TELL) in the class of contractual verbs. However, four signatories to this group establish forms that can be considered a first step towards identifying an agreement. Take, for example, a clip showing a man throwing a ball at a girl. A signatory signed: I FATHER, FEMALE CHILDZ-2 I THROWZ-2 `I am the father, the child is there, I throw (to the child)`. In groups 1 and 2, 60% of responses contain uninflected forms that are anchored in the signatory`s body. In such forms, the verb moves from or to the body of the signatory3, but it is not directed to a point in space.
In the answers of these signatories, the verbs of transmission behave no other than simple verbs. Both types of verbs are signed in relation to the body of the signatory, and the form of the verb does not change in accordance with a change of subject or object argument. Figure 1 shows the verb GIVE signed by a group 1 signatory when he describes a clip in which a woman gives a man a shirt. We can now go back to the typological conundrum above, namely why, in sign languages, the verb is limited to transmission verbs? The key to this question is the form of verbs that refer to transmission in a manual visual language. When depicting a gesture transmission event, the hands usually move from the signatory`s body to the outside, as if they were following the transmission of an entity from an owner (represented by the signatory`s body) to another person (the recipient). One end of the sign is on the body of the signatory, and the other end is in space, far from the body.
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