scholarly journals Grammatical Gender in Norwegian: Language Acquisition and Language Change

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia Rodina ◽  
Marit Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Feminine Gender ◽  
The Feminine

Based on data from two experimental studies, this paper investigates the production of gender in a Norwegian dialect (Tromsø) by several groups of child and adult speakers. The findings show that gender is late acquired (around age 7) and, furthermore, that there are considerable differences between the groups, indicating an ongoing historical change that involves the loss of feminine gender agreement. However, the feminine declensional endings, such as the suffixal definite article, are retained. While there are sociolinguistic factors causing this change, we argue that the nature of the change can be explained by the process of language acquisition.*

scholarly journals Grammatical Gender and Declension Class in Language Change: A Study of the Loss of Feminine Gender in Norwegian

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-263
Author(s):  
Yulia Rodina ◽  
Marit Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Feminine Gender ◽  
Indefinite Article ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
The Status ◽  
Gender System

In this paper, we investigate an ongoing change in the grammatical gender system of Norwegian. Previous research has shown that the feminine form of the indefinite article is quickly disappearing from several dialects, which has led to claims that the feminine gender is being lost from the language. We have carried out a study of the status of the feminine in possessives across five age groups of speakers of the Tromsø dialect. Our findings show that the prenominal possessives are affected by the change to the same extent as the indefinite article, while forms that have been argued not to be exponents of gender (the definite suffix and the postnominal possessive) are generally unaffected.

scholarly journals The Processing of Spanish Article–Noun Gender Agreement by Monolingual and Bilingual Toddlers

2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092097705
Author(s):  
Monika Molnar ◽  
José Alemán Bañón ◽  
Simona Mancini ◽  
Sendy Caffarra
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Gender Agreement

We assessed monolingual Spanish and bilingual Spanish-Basque toddlers’ sensitivity to gender agreement in correct vs. incorrect Spanish noun phrases (definite article + noun), using a spontaneous preference listening paradigm. Monolingual Spanish-learning toddlers exhibited a tendency to listen longer to the grammatically correct phrases (e.g., la casa; “the house”), as opposed to the incorrect ones (e.g., * el casa). This listening preference toward correct phrases is in line with earlier results obtained from French monolingual 18-month-olds (van Heugten & Christophe, 2015). Bilingual toddlers in the current study, however, tended to listen longer to the incorrect phrases. Basque was not a source of interference in the bilingual toddler’s input as Basque does not instantiate grammatical gender agreement. Overall, our results suggest that both monolingual and bilingual toddlers can distinguish between the correct and incorrect phrases by 18 months of age; however, monolinguals and bilinguals allocate their attention differently when processing grammatically incorrect forms.

scholarly journals Gender Change in Norwegian Dialects: Comprehension is affected before Production

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Lundquist ◽  
Yulia Rodina ◽  
Irina A. Sekerina ◽  
Marit Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Spoken Word Recognition ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Feminine Gender ◽  
Indefinite Article ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Gender Change

AbstractThis article investigates language variation and change in the grammatical gender system of Norwegian, where feminine gender agreement is in the process of disappearing in some Northern Norwegian dialects. Speakers of the Tromsø (N=46) and Sortland (N=54) dialects participated in a Visual Word experiment. The task examined whether they used indefinite articles (en, ei, et) predictively to identify nouns during spoken-word recognition, and whether they produced feminine articles in an elicited production task. Results show that all speakers used the neuter indefinite article et as a predictive cue, but no speakers used the feminine ei predictively, regardless of whether they produced it or not. The masculine article en was used predictively only by the speakers who did not produce feminine gender forms. We hypothesize that in dialects where the feminine gender is disappearing, this change in the gender system affects comprehension first, even before speakers stop producing the feminine indefinite article.

Myths and the prehistory of grammars

2002 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID W. LIGHTFOOT
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Historical Changes ◽  
Grammatical Categories

Only a small number of the world's languages have any kind of recorded history over more than a few generations, and in no case do records go back more than a few thousand years. From some perspectives, this doesn't matter. There are plenty of grammars to write and plenty of changes to describe accurately and then to explain in these recorded histories. Explanations for structural changes may be grounded in grammatical theory, and careful examination of historical changes, where the goal is explanation for how and why they happened, sometimes leads to innovations in grammatical theory, illuminating the nature of grammatical categories or the conditions for movement operations, for example. That has been the focus of some work on language change and data from changes have been used to argue for claims not only about grammatical theory but also about language acquisition, that children learn only from simple structures (DEGREE-0 COMPLEX) and that acquisition is cue-based (Lightfoot 1991, 1999). That is not to say, of course, that these propositions could not have been based on other kinds of data, but the fact is that they were based on analyses of historical change. From analyses of historical changes, we have learned things about the nature of the language faculty and about how it develops in children, unhampered by the limited inventory of changes.

scholarly journals Microvariation in Verbal and Nominal Agreement: An Analysis of Two Lombard Alpine Dialects

Probus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Pescarini
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Nominal Agreement ◽  
Plural Subject ◽  
The Third Person

Abstract In Bregagliotto and Mesolcinese, two Lombard Alpine dialects, feminine plural agreement/concord is marked by the formative -n, a reflex of the third person plural verbal ending. In Bregagliotto, plural -n triggers mesoclisis of the feminine subject clitic in contexts of inversion, whereas in the noun phrase -n behaves as a second-position element marking plural feminine concord. Mesolcinese exhibits verbal gender agreement as the formative -n occurs on the inflected verb whenever a feminine plural subject or the feminine plural object clitic occurs; in feminine plural DPs, -n is attached to any element except the definite article. I argue that the Bregagliotto system emerged when -n was reanalysed as an adjunct pluraliser, whereas in Mesolcinese -n has been turned into a marker of morphophonological concord/agreement.

scholarly journals Microvariation in Verbal and Nominal Agreement: An Analysis of Two Lombard Alpine Dialects

Probus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-248
Author(s):  
Diego Pescarini
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Nominal Agreement ◽  
Plural Subject ◽  
The Third Person

Abstract In Bregagliotto and Mesolcinese, two Lombard Alpine dialects, feminine plural agreement/concord is marked by the formative -n, a reflex of the third person plural verbal ending. In Bregagliotto, plural -n triggers mesoclisis of the feminine subject clitic in contexts of inversion, whereas in the noun phrase -n behaves as a second-position element marking plural feminine concord. Mesolcinese exhibits verbal gender agreement as the formative -n occurs on the inflected verb whenever a feminine plural subject or the feminine plural object clitic occurs; in feminine plural DPs, -n is attached to any element except the definite article. I argue that the Bregagliotto system emerged when -n was reanalysed as an adjunct pluraliser, whereas in Mesolcinese -n has been turned into a marker of morphophonological concord/agreement.

Gender Neutralization in Hebrew

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Einat Gonen ◽  
Doron Rubinstein
Keyword(s):  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Neutral Form ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Neutralization Process

Classical Hebrew, as well as Modern Hebrew, distinguishes between the genders of nouns, and every noun, whether or not it is animate, is characterized as masculine or feminine. However in colloquial Modern Hebrew we witness a process of neutralization. In this paper we address one aspect of gender neutralization in Hebrew: the case of the numerals in colloquial Hebrew. The use of numerals in spoken Modern Hebrew is varied, and many speakers do not regularly distinguish numerals according to the grammatical gender of the modified noun, but rather use the unmarked ‘neutral’ form of the numeral, which in Hebrew is typically the feminine form. The object of this paper is to study gender agreement between Modern Hebrew numerals and the nouns they modify in a corpus of casual spoken Hebrew discourse. Previous studies have argued, within a variety of methodologies and frameworks, for a gradual ongoing neutralization of the gender distinction of numerals in this environment. In our research, we will explore the conditions and the scope of this neutralization. This study is based on the collection of recordings in the CoSIH “Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew”, and it analyzes the various usages of the numerals in this corpus. It presents the scope and nature of the neutralization process in colloquial Hebrew and shows that although there is a bias towards neutralization, this bias is not absolute and depends on particular circumstances.

scholarly journals Lost in Translation. Abbreviations at the epitaphs of the Jewish cemetery of Beshenkovichi (Belarus)

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 45-56
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Belkina
Keyword(s):  
Characteristic Feature ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Feminine Gender ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Lost In Translation

In the article, we consider such language realities as abbreviations that were found at the Beshenkovichi cemetery in Belarus during the field expedition which was conducted by the “Sefer” Center in 2016. The goal of all the abbreviations is to reduce space on the material and to speed writing. The article describes in detail all kinds of abbreviations (alphabetic, sound and spelling) found in the epitaphs as well as general tendencies and peculiarities of their use on tombstones are revealed. For example, the most common abbreviations are the abbreviations “Here rests” (“Pei-Nun”) and “Tantzevah” (“ה‘‘תנצב — (“the final blessing. They are traditional for the region, but relate to two different types of abbreviations, alphabetic and sound respectively. Per contra, the use of the abbreviation “modest woman” (“שהצנו(י)הא ,(“which does not occur in other burials of Eastern Belarus, is a characteristic feature of the cemetery epitaphs. Its peculiarity is in the fact that both words are written together, and the connecting part represented with the letter “hey” (“-ה ,(“- which semantically is perceived the ending of the feminine gender of the word “woman” (Hebrew האשה (as well as a definite article to the adjective “modest” agreed with it (Hebrew הצנועה.( Thus, the abbreviations found in the epitaphs of the Beshekovichi cemetery were identified and described in the article together with the potential reasons for their use in the texts indicated. However, it is difficult to draw a conclusion on the interpretation of such phenomena (at the same time, both traditional abbreviations and explicit features of the cemetery). This may require further study of the funerary culture of the region.

Hatt or si? Neuter and feminine gender assignment in reference to female persons in Luxembourgish

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-601
Author(s):  
Sara Martin
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Time Analysis ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Feminine Gender ◽  
Audio Recordings

Abstract In Luxembourgish, feminine as well as neuter gender can be assigned to female persons. Here, female first names are morphologically treated as neuter and therefore trigger neuter gender on their targets (e.g. definite article, personal pronoun). Last names referring to women, however, are feminine and take feminine targets respectively. While the use of neuter and feminine in prototypical and invariable reference contexts are well-known, morphological conflicts often arise regarding more complex name types (e.g. female first name + last name) leading to different degrees of variation between both genders. Building especially upon previous findings by Döhmer (2016), the present contribution offers a first extensive empirical analysis on the use of neuter and feminine personal pronouns considering different female referents as well as familiarity, the referent’s and the speaker’s, as decisive (socio-pragmatical) factors for gender assignment. The results are based on elicited data retrieved from an online survey and audio recordings collected by means of the Luxembourgish language app Schnëssen and allow a quantification of the phenomenon going beyond previous contributions and descriptions in reference grammars. The apparent-time analysis, carried out in order to identify potential tendencies in language change, suggests a preference for neuter pronominalization for younger speakers of Luxembourgish in variable reference contexts.

scholarly journals Investigating Gender Assignment Strategies in Mixed Purepecha–Spanish Nominal Constructions

Languages ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Bellamy ◽  
M. Parafita Couto ◽  
Hans Stadthagen-Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Task Type ◽  
Comparable Data ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Feminine Gender ◽  
Translation Equivalent ◽  
Masculine Gender

Purepecha has no grammatical gender, whereas Spanish has a binary masculine–feminine system. In this paper we investigate how early sequential Purepecha–Spanish bilinguals assign gender to Purepecha nouns inserted into an otherwise Spanish utterance, using a director-matcher production task and an online forced-choice acceptability judgement task. The results of the production task indicate a strong preference for masculine gender, irrespective of the gender of the noun’s translation equivalent, the so-called “masculine default” option. Participants in the comprehension task were influenced by the orthography of the Purepecha noun in the -a ending condition, leading them to assign feminine gender agreement to nouns that are masculine in Spanish, but preferred the masculine default strategy again in the -i/-u ending condition. The absence of the “analogical criterion” in both tasks contrasts with the results of some previous studies, underlining the need for more comparable data in terms of task type. Our results also highlight how task type can influence the choices speakers make, in this context, in terms of the choice of grammatical gender agreement strategy. Task type should therefore be carefully controlled in future studies.

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