Nominal and pronominal gender: Putting Greenberg’s Universal 43 to the test

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-574
Author(s):  
Thomas Berg
Keyword(s):  
Strong Correlation ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Pronominal Gender ◽  
Processing Difficulty

AbstractThe aim of this study is to scrutinize Greenberg’s Universal 43, which predicts pronominal gender in the presence of nominal gender. On the basis of a sample of 500 gendered and ungendered languages, gender marking is examined in nouns, personal pronouns, possessors and possessums. Ungendered languages outnumber gendered languages. Eight out of 12 logically possible gender constellations are attested in the database. In keeping with Greenberg, languages with nominal gender show a strong bias towards gendered pronouns. There is a strong correlation between gendered personal pronouns and gendered possessors. Gendered possessums are cross-linguistically uncommon. The empirical patterns are brought about by a small set of theoretical principles. Gender is independently specified for each category. Gender marking is an effort. The strength of the correlation depends on the “distance” between two given gender sites. Coding gender twice in the same time frame creates a processing difficulty. Natural and grammatical gender conspire to generate the gender sensitivity of individual categories.

On the use of the grammatical gender of anaphoric pronouns in German. A comparison between Finns and Germans

1999 ◽  
Vol 18 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 123-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Irmen ◽  
Jochen Knoll
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Gender Information ◽  
Anaphoric Pronouns ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Second Language Speech Production ◽  
Pronominal Gender

Summary: The paper investigates the processing of grammatical gender in German. Finnish subjects regularly show problems in using pronominal gender in English or German second-language speech production. This may be due to the fact that there is no grammatical gender in Finnish. Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that Finns are in general unable to use the information contained in the grammatical gender of personal pronouns. The results show that Germans use both semantic and syntactic information in the processing of personal pronouns while Finns apparently only use semantic gender information. This simplified processing of gender leads to a greater tendency to make mistakes when using German as a foreign language.

scholarly journals Grammatical Gender Trouble and Hungarian Gender[lessness]. Part I: Comparative Linguistic Gender

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 143-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise O. Vasvári
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Issue ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Cultural Expectations ◽  
The World ◽  
Gender Trouble ◽  
Pronominal Gender

The aim of this study is to define linguistic gender[lessness], with particular reference in the latter part of the article to Hungarian, and to show why it is a feminist issue. I will discuss the [socio]linguistics of linguistic gender in three types of languages, those, like German and the Romance languages, among others, which possess grammatical gender, languages such as English, with only pronominal gender (sometimes misnamed ‘natural gender’), and languages such as Hungarian and other Finno-Ugric languages, as well as many other languages in the world, such as Turkish and Chinese, which have no linguistic or pronomial gender, but, like all languages, can make lexical gender distinctions. While in a narrow linguistic sense linguistic gender can be said to be afunctional, this does not take into account the ideological ramifications in gendered languages of the “leakage” between gender and sex[ism], while at the same time so-called genderless languages can express societal sexist assumptions linguistically through, for example, lexical gender, semantic derogation of women, and naming conventions. Thus, both languages with overt grammatical gender and those with gender-related asymmetries of a more covert nature show language to represent traditional cultural expectations, illustrating that linguistic gender is a feminist issue.

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 Wie 'Haar' zu 'Maus' wird: Geschlechtsbezogene pronominale Referenz im Thailändischen

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Korakoch Attaviriyanupap
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
First Person ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Thai Language ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Pronominal Reference ◽  
Self Reference ◽  
Selection Of

The use of gender-related personal pronouns is mostly found in different forms of third person singular (e. g. he/she/it in English or er/sie/es in German). In Thai, an isolate language without grammatical gender, the gender-specification can be observed in the use of first person singular pronominal reference. The selection of gender-related self-reference depends not only on sex but also on gender identity of the speaker. In this article, the complex system of pronominal reference in Thai language will be briefly introduced. After that, forms of self-reference used in the Thai film Iron Ladies are analyzed to show how the gender identity of speakers can influence their selection of pronominal reference.

scholarly journals The effect of gender agreement mismatches on intersentential anaphoric pronouns

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. e021027
Author(s):  
Eduardo Correa Soares ◽  
Mailce Borges Mota
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Contextual Features ◽  
Anaphoric Pronouns ◽  
Semantic Agreement

This article focuses on the effect of gender agreement mismatches between personal pronouns and their antecedents across sentences. In two acceptability experiments, we test whether acceptability of gender agreement violations on animated nouns may be modulated by grammatical and contextual features of the antecedents of personal pronouns. In the first experiment, we manipulated the “specificity” feature of the antecedent in order to make the antecedent refer either to the class of individuals or to a specific referent. In the second experiment, we used stereotypically male or female proper names to test whether grammatical gender mismatches between personal pronouns and bigender nouns could be attenuated. Although the first experiment showed an effect explainable purely by grammatical factors, against many theories of “semantic” agreement, the results of the second experiment suggest that both the grammatical and the contextual features of the antecedent are computed when speakers evaluate agreement relations between personal pronouns and their antecedents.

scholarly journals Weighing Psycholinguistic and Social Factors for Semantic Agreement in Dutch Pronouns

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-66
Author(s):  
Lien De Vos ◽  
Gert De Sutter ◽  
Gunther De Vogelaer
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Multivariate Statistical Analysis ◽  
Social Factor ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Multivariate Statistical ◽  
Syntactic Function ◽  
Pronominal Gender

Previous research has shown that Dutch pronominal gender is in a process of resemanticization: Highly individuated nouns are increasingly referred to with masculine and feminine pronouns, and lowly individuated ones with the neuter pronoun het/’t ‘it’, irrespective of the grammatical gender of the noun (Audring 2009). The process is commonly attributed to the loss of adnominal gender agreement, which is increasingly blurring distinctions between masculine and feminine nouns and, therefore, requires speakers to resort to semantic default strategies (De Vogelaer & De Sutter 2011). Several factors have been identified that influence the choice of semantic vis-à-vis lexical agreement, both linguistic and social. This article seeks to weigh the importance of both structural and social factors in pronominal gender agreement in Belgian Dutch, using the Belgian part of the Spoken Dutch Corpus. A multivariate statistical analysis reveals that most effects are structural, including noun semantics and the syntactic function of the antecedent and the pronoun, as well as the pragmatic status of the antecedent. The most important social factor is speech register. We argue that these effects support a psycholinguistic account in which resemanticization is seen as a change from below, caused by hampered lexical access to noun gender.

The evolutionary trends of grammatical gender in Indo-Aryan languages

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Marc Allassonnière-Tang ◽  
Michael Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Phylogenetic Comparative Methods ◽  
Evolutionary Trends ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Demonstrative Pronouns ◽  
Feature Values ◽  
Prior Analysis

Abstract This paper infers the processes of development and change of grammatical gender in Indo-Aryan languages using phylogenetic comparative methods. 48 Indo-Aryan languages are coded based on 44 presence-absence features relating to gender marking on the verbs, adjectives, personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and possessive pronouns. A Bayesian Reverse Jump Hyper Prior analysis, which infers the evolutionary dynamics of changes between feature values, gives results that are consistent with historical linguistic and typological studies on gender systems in Indo-Aryan languages and predicts the evolutionary trends of the features included in the dataset.

scholarly journals Neutrales Rufnamengenus zwischen Grammatik und Pragmatik

2021 ◽  
Vol 107 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Simone Busley ◽  
Julia Fritzinger
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Gender Variation ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
And Gender

In numerous German dialects and in Luxembourgish, female first names can take on both feminine and neuter gender agreement, thus leading to gender variation on a paradigmatical level and gender mismatches on a syntactical level. This is contradictory to canonical conceptions of gender systems and can be interpreted as a case of degrammaticalization. Here, grammatical gender has been refunctionalized as a socio-pragmatic marker which indicates the age and status of the woman referred to as well as the speaker’s relationship to her. In some varieties, regrammaticalization of gender assignment resulted in female first names always taking neuter agreements. The present article focusses on the reconstruction of the stages of degrammaticalization and regrammaticalization of gender assignment based on data of the research project “Das Anna und ihr Hund – Weibliche Rufnamen im Neutrum”. Analyses of the data indicate that personal pronouns as the targets most prone to differing agreement played a key role in this process.

Cultural and Linguistic Adaptation of the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) Into Hindi

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 3974-3981
Author(s):  
Ashwini Joshi ◽  
Isha Baheti ◽  
Vrushali Angadi
Keyword(s):  
Strong Correlation ◽  
Concurrent Validity ◽  
Interrater Reliability ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Weak Correlation ◽  
Voice Assessment ◽  
Perceptual Evaluation ◽  
Severity Grade ◽  
Normal Voice ◽  
Group A

Aim The purpose of this study was to develop and assess the reliability of a Hindi version of the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V). Reliability was assessed by comparing Hindi CAPE-V ratings with English CAPE-V ratings and by the Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia and Strain (GRBAS) scale. Method Hindi sentences were created to match the phonemic load of the corresponding English CAPE-V sentences. The Hindi sentences were adapted for linguistic content. The original English and adapted Hindi CAPE-V and GRBAS were completed for 33 bilingual individuals with normal voice quality. Additionally, the Hindi CAPE-V and GRBAS were completed for 13 Hindi speakers with disordered voice quality. The agreement of CAPE-V ratings was assessed between language versions, GRBAS ratings, and two rater pairs (three raters in total). Pearson product–moment correlation was completed for all comparisons. Results A strong correlation ( r > .8, p < .01) was found between the Hindi CAPE-V scores and the English CAPE-V scores for most variables in normal voice participants. A weak correlation was found for the variable of strain ( r < .2, p = .400) in the normative group. A strong correlation ( r > .6, p < .01) was found between the overall severity/grade, roughness, and breathiness scores in the GRBAS scale and the CAPE-V scale in normal and disordered voice samples. Significant interrater reliability ( r > .75) was present in overall severity and breathiness. Conclusions The Hindi version of the CAPE-V demonstrates good interrater reliability and concurrent validity with the English CAPE-V and the GRBAS. The Hindi CAPE-V can be used for the auditory-perceptual voice assessment of Hindi speakers.

Effects of Momentary Affect on Satisfaction Judgments

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-67
Author(s):  
Marko Tončić ◽  
Petra Anić
Keyword(s):  
Linear Models ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Hierarchical Linear Models ◽  
Curvilinear Relationship ◽  
Positive And Negative Affect ◽  
Transient Events ◽  
Time Frames ◽  
Events Data ◽  
Level Satisfaction ◽  
Source Of Information

Abstract. This study aims to examine the effect of affect on satisfaction, both at the between- and the within-person level for momentary assessments. Affect is regarded as an important source of information for life satisfaction judgments. This affective effect on satisfaction is well established at the dispositional level, while at the within-person level it is heavily under-researched. This is true especially for momentary assessments. In this experience sampling study both mood and satisfaction scales were administered five times a day for 7 days via hand-held devices ( N = 74 with 2,122 assessments). Several hierarchical linear models were fitted to the data. Even though the amount of between-person variance was relatively low, both positive and negative affect had substantial effects on momentary satisfaction on the between- and the within-person level as well. The within-person effects of affect on satisfaction appear to be more pronounced than the between-person ones. At the momentary level, the amount of between-person variance is lower than in studies with longer time-frames. The affect-related effects on satisfaction possibly have a curvilinear relationship with the time-frame used, increasing in intensity up to a point and then decreasing again. Such a relationship suggests that, at the momentary level, satisfaction might behave in a more stochastic manner, allowing for transient events/data which are not necessarily affect-related to affect it.

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