From case to topology

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-307
Author(s):  
Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Case System ◽  
Multiple Processes ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Sign Relations ◽  
Indexical Sign ◽  
Internal Agreement

Abstract The Scanian dialect of Middle Danish underwent a range of changes and reductions in its case system. I argue that these changes were caused neither by phonological developments nor by language contact as often assumed, but by multiple processes of grammaticalisation. The present paper focuses on one of these factors: that the relatively predictable constituent order within the Middle Danish noun phrase made case marking redundant in its function of marking noun-phrase internal agreement between head and modifier(s). This redundancy caused the case system to undergo a regrammation where the indexical sign relations changed so that the expression of morphological case no longer indicated this noun-phrase-internal agreement, leaving only topology (as well as morphologically marked number and gender agreement) as markers of this type of agreement. This factor contributed to the subsequent degrammation of the entire case system.

scholarly journals Stability and Change in Grammatical Gender: Pronouns in Heritage Scandinavian

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne Bondi Johannessen ◽  
Ida Larsson
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Heritage Languages ◽  
Stability And Change ◽  
Pronominal Gender ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Internal Agreement

Previous studies on gender in Scandinavian heritage languages in America have looked at noun-phrase internal agreement. It has been shown that some heritage speakers have non-target gender agreement, but this has been interpreted in different ways by different researchers. This paper presents a study of pronominal gender in Heritage Norwegian and Swedish, using existing recordings and a small experiment that elicits pronouns. It is shown that the use of pronominal forms is largely target-like, and that the heritage speakers make gender distinctions. There is, however, some evidence of two competing systems in the data, and there is a shift towards a two-gender system, arguably due to koinéization.

scholarly journals Early acquisition of gender agreement in the Spanish noun phrase: starting small

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
SONIA MARISCAL
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Early Acquisition ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Large Corpus

ABSTRACTNativist and constructivist accounts differ in their characterization of children's knowledge of grammatical categories. In this paper we present research on the process of acquisition of a particular grammatical system, gender agreement in the Spanish noun phrase, in children under three years of age. The design of the longitudinal study employed presents some variations in relation to classical studies. The aim was to obtain a large corpus of NP data which would allow different types of analysis of the children's productions to be carried out. Intra-individual variability in early NP types was analyzed and measured, and an elicitation task for adjectives was used. Results show that the acquisition of NP and gender agreement is a complex process which advances as the children gradually integrate different pieces of evidence: phonological, distributional and functional. The reduction of variability as the grammatical process advances is a key feature for its explanation.

scholarly journals English relative clauses in a cross-Germanic perspective

Nordlyd ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-115
Author(s):  
Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
Case System ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Germanic Languages

The article talk examines the distribution of relativising strategies in English in a cross-Germanic perspective, arguing that English is quite unique among Germanic languages both regarding the number of available options and their distribution. The differences from other Germanic languages (both West Germanic and Scandinavian) are primarily due to the historical changes affecting the case and gender system in English more generally. The loss of case and gender on the original singular neuter relative pronoun facilitated its reanalysis as a complementiser. The effect of the case system can also be observed in properties that are not evidently related to case. Specifically, choice between the pronoun strategy and the complementiser strategy is known to show differences according to the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. While English shows a subject vs. oblique distinction in this respect, matching its nominative/oblique case system, German dialects show a subject/direct object vs. oblique distinction, matching the nominative/accusative/oblique case setting in the language. The particular setting in English is thus not dependent on e.g. a single parameter but on various factors that are otherwise present in other Germanic languages as well, and it is ultimately the complex interplay of these factors that results in the particular setup.

Gender agreement is different

Linguistics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 865-894
Author(s):  
Diana Forker
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Person Agreement

Abstract Person and gender are typical agreement features within the clause, and crosslinguistically they are frequently part of one and the same agreement system and even expressed through the same morphological exponents. Some theories even go so far as to claim that person and gender agreement on different targets, e.g., verbs and adjectives, are instances of one and the same agreement phenomenon. This paper discusses gender and person agreement in the Nakh-Daghestanian language Lak. It shows that the two agreement systems are formally and functionally completely separated from each other. Corpus data from Lak does not prove that gender agreement in this language is used to establish reference. Therefore it should rather be treated as concord, that is, similar to modifier agreement within the noun phrase.

scholarly journals Gender Agreement Mismatches in Heritage Greek

Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Artemis Alexiadou ◽  
Vasiliki Rizou ◽  
Nikolaos Tsokanos ◽  
Foteini Karkaletsou
Keyword(s):  
Life Span ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Adolescent Group ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Internal Agreement

This paper investigates gender agreement mismatches between nominal expressions and the targets of agreement they control in two groups (adults and adolescents) of Heritage Greek speakers in the USA. On the basis of language production data elicited via a narration task, we show that USA Greek Heritage speakers, unlike monolingual controls, show mismatches in gender agreement. We will show that the mismatches observed differ with respect to the agreement target between groups, i.e., noun phrase internal agreement seems more affected in the adolescent group, while personal pronouns appear equally affected. We will argue that these patterns suggest retreat to default gender, namely neuter in Greek. Neuter emerges as default when no agreement pattern can be established. As adult speakers show less mismatches, we will explore the reasons why speakers improve across the life span.

Extending the Person-Case Constraint to Gender: Agreement, Locality, and the Syntax of Pronouns

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Steven Foley ◽  
Maziar Toosarvandani
Keyword(s):  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Functional Head ◽  
Person Case Constraint ◽  
Person Features ◽  
Asymmetrical Shape ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Combinatorial Space ◽  
Crosslinguistic Variation ◽  
Gender System

In many languages with clitic or other weak pronouns, a Person-Case Constraint (Perlmutter 1971, Bonet 1991) prohibits certain combinations of these pronouns on the basis of their person features. This article explores the crosslinguistic variation in such constraints, starting with several closely related Zapotec varieties. These restrict combinations of clitics not just on the basis of person, but also on the basis of a finely articulated, largely animacy-based gender system. Operating within a larger combinatorial space, these constraints offer a new perspective on the typology of Phi-Case Constraints (ΦCCs) more generally. This typology has an overall asymmetrical shape correlating with the underlying syntactic position of pronominal arguments. We develop a principled theory of this typology that incorporates three hypotheses: (a) ΦCCs arise from how a functional head Agrees with clitic pronouns, subject to intervention-based locality (Anagnostopoulou 2003, Béjar and Rezac 2003, 2009); (b) the variation in these constraints arises from variation in the relativization of probes (Anagnostopoulou 2005, Nevins 2007, 2011); and (c) clitic and other weak pronouns have no inherent need to be licensed via Agree with a functional head. Under this account, the crosslinguistic typology of ΦCCs has the potential to shed light on the grammatical representation of person and gender.

Word Order and Agreement in Tagoi

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-174
Author(s):  
Suzan Alamin
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Class System ◽  
Order Types ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
Noun Class ◽  
South Kordofan

Abstract This study provides a detailed description of word order types, agreement patterns and alternations found in Tagoi, a Kordofanian language traditionally spoken in South Kordofan. After a brief presentation of the language (section 1), the noun class system is introduced (section 2) and the word order and agreement patterns are examined at the noun phrase level (section 3). Section 4 gives information about the constituent order at clause and sentence level, while Section 5 summarizes the findings and conclusion of the paper. All in all, the paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the grammar, structure and typological features of Tagoi.

The complexity of grammatical gender and language ecology

2020 ◽  
pp. 193-229
Author(s):  
Francesca Di Garbo
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Identity ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Language Ecology ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
Languages In Contact ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
The Prestige

This chapter investigates the evolution of grammatical gender agreement, taken as an instance of paradigmatic and syntagmatic morphological complexity, in a sample of thirty-six languages, organized per sets of closely related languages with different sociolinguistic profiles. Both loss and emergence of gender agreement occur in areas of intense language contact between diverse speech communities. However, given similar contact scenarios, asymmetries in the structure of the bilingual population and/or in the prestige dynamics between the languages in contact tend to favour one development over the other. Loss of gender agreement occurs when the demographically dominant and/or more prestigious language lacks grammatical gender. Conversely, borrowing of gender agreement is favoured when the demographically dominant and/or more prestigious language has grammatical gender. Finally, the data suggest that patterns of gender marking may have important ties to the way in which speakers construe their linguistic identity in opposition to that of their neighbours.

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