Signs encoding breaking events in Mexican Sign Language (LSM)

Abstract

This paper describes signs that express breaking events in LSM. I contend that breaking events can be understood as the sum of a set of simpler subevents making up a macroevent. Each subevent comprises a phase of the macroevent phases, and all are organized as a causal chain: cause-result. Some signs encoding breaking events in LSM lexicalize each and every phase, as is the case of signs translated here as DESGARRAR (TEAR) and TROZAR (SHRED), while other signs lexicalize only the change of state phase, such as ROMPER (BREAK). The latter is a peculiar sign due to its apparently ambivalent transitive use. Nevertheless, I assert this sign is basically intransitive. The transitive ambivalence of ROMPER seems to be motivated by the simplification of the phases integrating the breaking macroevent.