Chapter 8. Investigating grammatical gender agreement in Spanish

2022 ◽  
pp. 183-208
Author(s):  
LeAnne Spino
Keyword(s):  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Gender Agreement

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 agreement hierarchy in common gender and epicene nouns in Spanish

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 279-292
Author(s):  
Anastasiia Ogneva
Keyword(s):  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Formal Rule ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Morphosyntactic Feature

Gender is a grammatical category defined as an abstract morphosyntactic feature of nouns reflected in characteristics of associated words (i.e. agreement) (Hockett, 1958; Corbett, 1991). Agreement is, in fact, easily established in “transparent” nouns which follow either semantic or formal rule of gender agreement. However, when we deal with ambiguous nouns regarding their gender, agreement is not straightforward. In this article we aim to pursue two main goals. Firstly, to review and briefly describe grammatical gender system in Spanish (§1) with a special focus on so called “ambiguous” or “problematic” nouns (§2). Secondly, to review agreement hierarchy theories and explore if they are applicable for Spanish epicenes and common gender nouns (§3). Discussion and conclusion remarks are presented in (§4).

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.

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.

L1 effects on the processing of grammatical gender in L2

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 159-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura L. Sabourin
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
English Group

This paper explores L1 effects on the L2 off-line processing of Dutch (grammatical gender) agreement. The L2 participants had either German, English or a Romance language as their L1. Non-gender agreement (finiteness and agreement) was tested to ascertain the level of proficiency of the participants. It was found that the German and Romance groups did not differ from the native speaker controls while the English group performed significantly worse. For the two grammatical gender experiments clear effects of L1 were found. No groups performed at a level similar to the native speakers, but of the L2 groups a hierarchy of performance was found. The German group performed the best, then the Romance group followed by the lower proficient English group. This was taken to mean that not only having grammatical gender in the L1 was an important factor but that the grammatical gender had to be similar in order for the L2 distinctions to be learnt.

scholarly journals Age and input in the acquisition of grammatical gender in Dutch

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Unsworth
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Frequency Effects ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Common ◽  
Effect Of Age

This article investigates the effect of age of first exposure and the quantity and quality of input to which non-native acquirers (L2ers) are exposed in their acquisition of grammatical gender in Dutch. Data from 103 English-speaking children, preteens and adults were analysed for gender agreement on definite determiners. It was observed that although most learners regularly overgeneralized the common gender definite determiner de to neuter nouns, there also existed child and adult L2ers who consistently produced the target neuter determiner het with these nouns ( contra Carroll, 1989; Hawkins and Franceschina, 2004; Franceschina, 2005). Participants in all three groups produced het equally frequently with non-derived nouns as with diminutives, one of the few reliable morphophonological cues for neuter gender (compare Carroll, 1999). The present findings are evaluated in light of previous research (Hulk and Cornips, 2006a) suggesting that the quality of input to which L2ers are exposed may significantly affect their ability to proceed beyond the aforementioned stage of overgeneralization. Evidence for frequency effects and the observation that targetlike performance correlated with length of exposure suggests that quantity of input is a significant factor in the acquisition of Dutch gender. This is to be expected if the acquisition of gender is for a large part word-learning (Carroll, 1989; Montrul and Potowski, 2007)

Grammatical gender processing in L2: Electrophysiological evidence of the effect of L1–L2 syntactic similarity

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALICE FOUCART ◽  
CHERYL FRENCK-MESTRE
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Electrophysiological Evidence ◽  
Syntactic Similarity ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Gender Processing

This study examines the effect of proficiency and similarity between the first and the second language on grammatical gender processing in L2. In three experiments, we manipulated gender agreement violations within the determiner phrase (DP), between the determiner and the noun (Experiment 1), the postposed adjective and the noun (Experiment 2) and the preposed adjective and the noun (Experiment 3). We compared the performance of German advanced learners of French to that of French native controls. The results showed a similar P600 effect for native and non-native speakers for agreement violations when agreement rules where similar in L1 and L2 (Experiment 1, depending on proficiency), whereas no effect was found for L2 learners when agreement rules varied across languages. These results suggest that syntactic processing in L2 is affected by the similarity of syntactic rules in L1 and L2.

scholarly journals Early and late bilingual processing of Spanish gender, morphology and gender congruency

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-208
Author(s):  
Irma Alarcón
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Distinct Advantage ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Real Time Processing ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Late Bilinguals

The present study investigates whether advanced proficiency-matched early and late bilinguals display gender agreement processing quantitatively and qualitatively similar to that of native speakers of Spanish. To address this issue, a timed grammaticality judgment task was used to analyze the effects on accuracy and reaction times of grammatical gender, morphology, and gender congruency of the article and adjective within a noun phrase. Overall results indicated no significant statistical differences between the native speakers and the two bilingual groups. Both early and late bilinguals displayed similar grammatical gender knowledge in their underlying grammars. A detailed examination of the congruency effect, however, revealed that the native speakers, not the bilinguals, displayed sensitivity to gender agreement violations. Moreover, the native and heritage speakers pattern together in accuracy and directionality of gender agreement processing: both were less accurate with incongruent articles than with incongruent adjectives, while the second language learners were equally accurate in both agreement domains. Despite having internalized gender in their implicit grammars, the late bilinguals did not show native-like patterns in real time processing. The present findings suggest that, for high proficiency speakers, there is a distinct advantage for early over late bilinguals in achieving native-like gender lexical access and retrieval. Therefore, age of acquisition, in conjunction with learning context, might be the best predictor of native-like gender agreement processing at advanced and near-native proficiency levels.

scholarly journals In memoriam of Professor Pavel Štys (1933–2018): biography, memories, bibliography and list of described taxa

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petr Kment ◽  
Petr Baňař ◽  
Svatopluk Bílý ◽  
Dominique Pluot-Sigwalt ◽  
Dan A. Polhemus ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Species Group ◽  
International Commission ◽  
Zoological Nomenclature ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Annotated List ◽  
Short Biography ◽  
In Memoriam

Abstract Professor Pavel Štys (1933–2018) was an eminent specialist in morphology, taxonomy, systematics, biology and behaviour of Heteroptera, and the Commissioner of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. All his career was connected with the Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, where he educated several generations of Czech biologists and teachers. Here we provide his short biography, personal memories of his colleagues, bibliography currently comprising 386 papers, and annotated list of the taxa he described, which includes two families (Stemmocryptidae and Medocostidae), 11 subfamilies, 4 tribes, 54 genus-group and 129 species-group names, all of them in Heteroptera, except one species and one subspecies of Syrphidae (Diptera). Within the list the grammatical gender of the genera Chauliops Scott, 1874 and Neochauliops Štys, 1963 is corrected to masculine in accordance with ICZN (1999: Article 30.1.4.3) affecting the gender agreement in the following species: Chauliops conicus Gao & Bu, 2009, Ch. lobatulus Breddin, 1907, Ch. petiolatus (Germar, 1837), Ch. quaternarius Gao & Bu, 2009, and Neochauliops laciniatus (Bergroth, 1916).

scholarly journals Prediction of Agreement and Phonetic Overlap Shape Sublexical Identification

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea E. Martin ◽  
Philip J. Monahan ◽  
Arthur G. Samuel
Keyword(s):  
Speech Signal ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Order Information ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Sentential Context ◽  
Internal Representations ◽  
Phonetic Cues ◽  
Phoneme Identification

The mapping between the physical speech signal and our internal representations is rarely straightforward. When faced with uncertainty, higher-order information is used to parse the signal and because of this, the lexicon and some aspects of sentential context have been shown to modulate the identification of ambiguous phonetic segments. Here, using a phoneme identification task (i.e., participants judged whether they heard [o] or [a] at the end of an adjective in a noun–adjective sequence), we asked whether grammatical gender cues influence phonetic identification and if this influence is shaped by the phonetic properties of the agreeing elements. In three experiments, we show that phrase-level gender agreement in Spanish affects the identification of ambiguous adjective-final vowels. Moreover, this effect is strongest when the phonetic characteristics of the element triggering agreement and the phonetic form of the agreeing element are identical. Our data are consistent with models wherein listeners generate specific predictions based on the interplay of underlying morphosyntactic knowledge and surface phonetic cues.

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