scholarly journals The two concurrent gender systems of Mba

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-325
Author(s):  
Ines Fiedler ◽  
Tom Güldemann ◽  
Benedikt Winkhart
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Classification Systems ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Semantic Agreement

Abstract This paper describes the gender system of the Ubangi language Mba, which can be characterized by the co-existence of two different classification systems. The ‘formal agreement’ system is tightly bound with the nominal deriflection system, while the ‘semantic agreement’ system, by contrast, emanates from a tripartite distinction in the language made between masculine humans, other animates, and inanimates. Whereas formal agreement is manifested on different elements that modify the head noun, the semantic agreement system operates in the pronominal domain, mostly outside the noun phrase.

The Diachrony of Semantic Gender Agreement: Findings from Middle Dutch

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margot Kraaikamp
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Middle Dutch ◽  
Pronominal Gender ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Semantic Agreement

This paper presents the results of a corpus study of pronominal gender agreement in Middle Dutch. In present-day Dutch and in several other Germanic varieties, pronouns show semantic gender agreement that is based on the degree of individuation of the referent. Dutch pronouns show variation between this type of agreement and lexical gender agreement. This study investigates how old semantic agreement based on individuation is. In particular, it aims to answer the question of whether semantic agreement has developed in response to the change from the Germanic three-gender system to a two-gender system or dates back to before this change. The results show that agreement based on individuation already existed in Middle Dutch, when the original three-gender system was still in place. This shows that this type of agreement did not develop in response to the change from three to two nominal genders. The semantic interpretation of the genders along the lines of individuation apparently existed already and could be an old Germanic, possibly Indo-European, feature. What seems to have changed over time is the proportion of semantic to lexical agreement, as semantic agreement appears to occur more frequently in present-day Dutch than in Middle Dutch. This shift in agreement preference may be due to the loss of adnominal gender marking and the resulting reduced visibility of lexical gender in the noun phrase.

The relative verb forms of Cuwabo (Bantu P34) as contextually oriented participles

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-491
Author(s):  
Rozenn Guérois ◽  
Denis Creissels
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
The Subject ◽  
North Western

AbstractCuwabo (Bantu P34, Mozambique) illustrates a relativization strategy, also attested in some North-Western and Central Bantu languages, whose most salient characteristics are that: (a) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement with the subject (as in independent clauses), but agreement with the head noun; (b) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement in person and number-gender (or class), but only in number-gender; (c) when a noun phrase other than the subject is relativized, the noun phrase encoded as the subject in the corresponding independent clause occurs in post-verbal position and does not control any agreement mechanism. In this article, we show that, in spite of the similarity between the relative verb forms of Cuwabo and the corresponding independent verb forms, and the impossibility of isolating a morphological element analyzable as a participial formative, the relative verb forms of Cuwabo are participles, with the following two particularities: they exhibit full contextual orientation, and they assign a specific grammatical role to the initial subject, whose encoding in relative clauses coincides neither with that of subjects of independent verb forms, nor with that of adnominal possessors.

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.

The rise of gender in Nalca (Mek, Tanah Papua)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Wälchli
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Transfer ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Stable Structure ◽  
Diachronic Change ◽  
Case Marker ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Transfer Chain

This chapter reconstructs how Nalca, a Mek language of the Trans-New Guinea phylum, has acquired gender markers and describes the non-canonical properties of this highly unusual gender system. Gender in Nalca is mainly assigned by two different defaults, phonological assignment is holistic, there is a gender switch depending on the syntax of the noun phrase, controller and target are adjacent, and gender has the function of case marker hosts. Gender in Nalca is only weakly entrenched in the lexicon and predominantly phrasal. It is argued that canonical gender is an attractor (a complex, diachronically stable structure with heterogeneous origins). A model of the gender attractor based on the notion of information transfer chain is developed. The rise of Nalca gender is an instance of system emergence where several diachronic processes, such as grammaticalization, reanalysis, and analogy, interact. Chains of rapid diachronic change are triggered by anomalies that entail other anomalies.

Canonical gender

2015 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
GREVILLE G. CORBETT ◽  
SEBASTIAN FEDDEN
Keyword(s):  
Classification Systems ◽  
Single Type ◽  
Entire System ◽  
Single Gender ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
The World ◽  
Canonical Ideal ◽  
Typological Approach ◽  
Nominal Classification ◽  
Gender System

Nominal classification remains a fascinating topic but in order to make further progress we need greater clarity of definition and analysis. Taking a Canonical Typology approach, we use canonical gender as an ideal against which we can measure the actual gender systems we find in the languages of the world. Building on previous work on canonical morphosyntactic features, particularly on how they intersect with canonical parts of speech, we establish the distinctiveness of gender, reflected in the Canonical Gender Principle: In a canonical gender system, each noun has a single gender value. We develop three criteria associated with this principle, which together ensure that canonically a noun has exactly one gender value; we give examples of non-canonicity for each criterion, thus gradually building the typology. This is the essential groundwork for a comprehensive typology of nominal classification: the Canonical Typological approach allows us to tease apart clusterings of properties and to characterize individual properties with respect to a canonical ideal, rather than requiring us to treat the entire system as belonging to a single type. This approach is designed to facilitate comparisons of different noun classification systems across languages.

Testing the effect of an arbitrary subject pronoun on relative clause comprehension: a study with Hebrew-speaking children

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 959-980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yair HAENDLER ◽  
Flavia ADANI
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Specific Effect ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
Discourse Pragmatics

AbstractPrevious studies have found that Hebrew-speaking children accurately comprehend object relatives (OR) with an embedded non-referential arbitrary subject pronoun (ASP). The facilitation of ORs with embedded pronouns is expected both from a discourse-pragmatics perspective and within a syntax-based locality approach. However, the specific effect of ASP might also be driven by a mismatch in grammatical features between the head noun and the pronoun, or by its relatively undemanding referential properties. We tested these possibilities by comparing ORs whose embedded subject is either ASP, a referential pronoun, or a lexical noun phrase. In all conditions, grammatical features were controlled. In a referent-identification task, the matching features made ORs with embedded pronouns difficult for five-year-olds. Accuracy was particularly low when the embedded pronoun was referential. These results indicate that embedded pronouns do not facilitate ORs across the board, and that the referential properties of pronouns affect OR processing.

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.

scholarly journals Syntactic and semantic agreement in Eegimaa (Banjal)

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 585-627
Author(s):  
Serge Sagna
Keyword(s):  
Noun Class ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Hybrid Nouns ◽  
Semantic Agreement

Abstract Typological research on agreement systems recognises syntactic and semantic agreement as the two main types of agreement, with the former considered to be more canonical. An examination of different manifestations of semantic agreement found in the Gújjolaay Eegimaa1 noun class (non sex based gender) system is proposed in this paper from the perspective of Canonical Typology, and the findings are related to the Agreement Hierarchy predictions. The results show that Eegimaa has hybrid nouns and constructional mismatches which trigger semantically based agreement mismatches, both in gender and number between controller nouns and certain targets. This paper shows that Eegimaa has two main subtypes of semantic agreement: human semantic agreement and locative semantic agreement. The data and the analysis proposed here reveal novel results according to which these two types of semantic agreement behave differently in relation to the Agreement Hierarchy.

scholarly journals Internally-Headed Relative Clauses in Hakha Chin

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefon M Flego
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Indirect Object ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Embedded Clause

Hakha Chin, an underdocumented Tibeto-Burman language, is reported to have internally-headed relative clauses (IHRCs), a typologically rare syntactic structure in which the head noun phrase surfaces within the relative clause itself. The current study provides new data and novel observations which bear on several outstanding questions about IHRCs in this language: 1) Relativization of locative and instrumental adjuncts in IHRCs is avoided. 2) Conflicting stem allomorph requirements of negation and relativization of non-subjects give rise to optionality in stem choice when the two are brought together in an IHRC. 3) To relativize an indirect object, an IHRC is either avoided altogether, or the noun phrase is fronted to the absolute left-most position in the embedded clause. 4) Relativization of NPs with a human referent in an IHRC exhibit relativizer gender agreement, which has not been previously reported for this clause type in Hakha Chin.

scholarly journals A Description of Dzә (Jenjo) Nouns and Noun Phrases, an Adamawa Language of Northeastern Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-504
Author(s):  
Peace Benson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Important Data ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Reflexive Pronouns ◽  
Preliminary Study

Dzə [jen] is an Adamawa language spoken in some parts of Taraba, Adamawa and Gombe states in Northeastern Nigeria. The study presented in the article syntactically describes nouns and noun phrases in Dzə. In an attempt to document Dzə and taking into consideration that Dzə is an under-investigated and under-documented language, the result will provide important data to typological research and to linguists working on Adamawa languages. The study adopts a descriptive research design in collecting, describing and analyzing the data. The data was obtained from fieldwork in December 2014, personal observations of daily conversations, introspection and the Dzə Bible. In the article, a brief overview of the phonology and tone of Dzə is provided. It also shows the different kinds of nouns, pronouns and noun phrases in Dzə; simple and complex noun phrases. The language is rich in pronouns, consisting of subject pronouns, object pronouns, reflexive pronouns, interrogative pronouns and possessive pronouns. As it is with most African languages, the elements that constitute a noun phrase occur after the head noun. These elements are articles, demonstratives, possessives, adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, genitive constructions (inalienable and alienable possessives) and relative clauses. This is a preliminary study of Dzə and it is open for further research and contributions.

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