Is grammatical gender less complex than commonly believed? - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Workshop: “Parallel text analysis in diachronic research” Marburg University, Germany February 22–23, 2018 Is grammatical gender less complex than commonly believed? Extracting the feminine gender gram from parallel texts Bernhard Wälchli Stockholm University bernhard@ling.su.se 1

Is gender special or like any other grammatical category? “Gender is the most puzzling of the grammatical categories” (Corbett 1991: 1) Gender is like any other linguistic categories, part of it is simple, part of it is complex 2

You can skip this ad in 5 seconds Di Garbo, Francesca & Bernhard Wälchli & Bruno Olsson, eds., (forthc.) Grammatical Gender and Linguistic Complexity . Language Science Press. With contributions by Jenny Audring, Östen Dahl, Matthew Dryer, Tom Güldemann & Ines Fiedler, Don Killian, Henrik Liljegren, Matti Miestamo, Johanna Nichols, Kaius Sinnemäki, Erik Svärd, and others. 3

Anaphoric feminine gender gram 4

A major advantage of parallel texts is that language use (to the extent it is not distorted by translationese) can be compared on the level of specific examples Categories can be built bottom-up No need to resort to widely accepted traditional definitions Parallel text typology can hence provide results that are challenging for received views in linguistic theory. 5

3x5 “Base paradigm” of perception verbs (Viberg 2001) Experience Activity Phenomenon-based Ecological SIGHT see look look (like) psychology HEAR hear listen sound ... (James J. Gibson) Middle English Finnish (1992) Ambient and 0.2 0.2 ambulatory vision : look at look around “One sees the look up 0.0 regain 0.0 (go&) look Dimension 2 Dimension 2 sight see see lo! environment not just observe -0.2 see -0.2 nähdä with the eyes but with watch katsoa behold lo katsella -0.4 -0.4 see_self huomata the eyes in the head on pitää_vara look_about look katsahtaa the shoulders of a -0.6 -0.6 watch out behold about varota body that gets about” -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 (Gibson 1979: 222). Dimension 1 Dimension 1 Ambulatory vision (Mark 5:15): English(leb) and they came to see what it was that had happened. Ihmisiä lähti katsomaan , mitä oli tapahtunut. Finnish (1992) Wälchli (2017) 6

Lexical aspect of ‘see’ Following Vendler (1967: 138) linguists quite unanimously ascribe to ‘see’ a dual nature of state (1a) and achievement (1b) (1a) I see Mount Tamalpais. (1b) I reached the crest of the hill and saw Mount Tamalpais. State and achievement profiling of English see according to Croft (2012) a) q b) q seen seen not seen not seen t t In Russian perfectives of verbs of perception ( uvidet’ ‘see[ PFV ]’ ) profile the inceptive phase unlike imperfectives ( videt’ ‘see[ IPFV ] ) (Croft 2012: 120) Wälchli (2017) 7

Specificity cline in Bulgakov’s Master i Margarita Italian Croatian 0.6 0.6 vedere [229] vidjeti [193] scorgere [14] vedersi [6] ugledati [60] accorgersi [5] opaziti [6] rivedere [3] 0.4 distinguere [3] 0.4 uviDati [3] scoprire [1] ricognoscere [1] spaziti [2] Dimension 2 Dimension 2 osservare [1] pomotriti [2] notare [1] pogledati [1] 0.2 0.2 gledati [1] 0.0 0.0 -0.2 -0.2 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 Dimension 1 Dimension 1 Russian Bulgarian 0.6 0.6 vidja vidit [129] viZdam uvidit [120] razliCa zabeleZa razgljadet [13] razbera 0.4 0.4 zArna vidno [4] razliCavam vidat [4] Dimension 2 razbiram Dimension 2 nabljudavam povidat [2] liCa 0.2 0.2 0.0 0.0 -0.2 -0.2 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 Dimension 1 Dimension 1 joint work with Ruprecht von Waldenfels 8

Functional domains “any domain of related (semantic or pragmatic) functions that (one or more) language(s) encode with the formal means they possess” (Miestamo 2005: 293). Functional-domain typology examines the ways in which languages encode functional domains morpho-syntactically or lexically (see Givón 1981; Stassen 1985: 1-23). E.g., comparison: “Definition: a construction in a natural language counts as a comparative construction (and will therefore be taken into account in the typology) if that construction has the semantic function of assigning a graded (i.e. non- identical) position on a predicative scale on two (possibly complex) objects.” (Stassen 1985: 24) 9

Traditional view on gender: formal criteria indispensable “...establishing the existence of a gender system and determining the number of gender requires evidence from agreement (that is, evidence concerned with form). At the same time, gender always has a semantic core: there are no gender systems in which the genders are purely formal categories” (Corbett 1991: 307) “Genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words” (Hockett 1958: 231) Noun classes and agreement as definitional notions Defining notions of agreement according to Corbett (2006: 4): controller, target, (syntactic) domain, features, conditions -> Gender is complex by definition. Why not trying a simpler approach and go for the semantic core directly? 10

What exactly is included by noun classes and agreement? (1) English? But he answered: "...." But she said: "..." Japanese? kanojo *‘that.woman’ wa? kanojo she TOP ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ (Ishiyama 2008: 232) Kano is originally the attributive form of a distal demonstrative (free form kare ) that has come out of use except in a few fixed archaic expressions such as kare kore ‘this and that’. Jo is the Sino-Japanese expression for ‘woman’ (Ishiyama 2008: 141). Kanojo and its masculine counterpart kare ‘he’ (originally ‘that’) were established in the Meiji period (1868-1912) in the literary movement genbun-itchi (unification of written and spoken language) where translations from European languages played an important role (Ishiyama 2008: 139) . 11

What exactly is included by noun classes and agreement? (2) Tlacoyalco Popoloca? =third person pronoun je'e not distinguishing gender =large number of short forms of nouns with anaphoric use (termed “short pronouns” in Stark 2011: 3) (2) Tlacoyalco Popoloca (Stark 2011: 4) Naa janna'a jian anseen jan ixin rinao jan kain one mother fine heart mother[ ANA ] because loves mother[ ANA ] all xe'en jan . children mother[ ANA ] ‘A mother has a good heart because she loves all her children.’ (Stark 2011: 4) Some condensed anaphoric NPs are reminiscent of noun classifiers (“pronouns that echo a prefix”; Stark 2011: 4) and some uses are compatible with a noun class with agreement interpretation as when animals take the pronoun ba . However, “short pronouns” are productive and apply even to Spanish loanwords ( guitaarra , “short pronoun” guitarra ). 12

What exactly is included by noun classes and agreement? (3) Iraya (Austronesian, Philippines) person-name markers? laki Howan ( lalaki ‘man’), bayi Mariya ( babayi ‘woman’) laki Satanas ‘the Devil’ hadi Dabid ‘King David’ anghil Gabril ‘the angel Gabriel’ Tagalog (Austronesian, Philippines) person-name markers? si Juan [ TOP . PN Juan] ‘John’ ang lalaki [ TOP man] ‘the man’ 13

Feminine gender as a functional domain (3) English (Indo-European; Matth. 15:26-27): gender marking on free pronouns But he answered: "...." But she said: "..." (4) Garifuna (Maipurean; Matth. 15:26-27): gender marking on bound pronouns and prepositions Ába l- aríñagun Jesúsu t- un: "...." Ába t- aríñagun: "...." and 3 SG . M -say Jesus 3 SG . F -to and 3 SG . F -say (5) Ama (Arai/Left May; Matth. 15:26-27): gender marking on bound pronouns (S, O) no-na-ni imo na i- so- ki, Isiso mo. that- FOC -here talk FOC say- O .3 SG . F - REM . PST Jesus TOP Ulai no-na-ni nukonu mo na imo -ki, "..." but that- FOC -here woman. SPEC TOP FOC say[ O 3 SG . M ] - REM . PST (6) Hausa (Afro-Asiatic; Matth. 15:26-27): gender marking on aspect words Ya amsa ya ce: "..." Sai ta ce: "..." 3 SG . M answer PST .3 SG . M say then PST .3 SG . F say ‘But he answered: "...." But she said: "..." ’ Functional domain: Anaphoric reference to female human beings 14

 Pronominal gender Free and bound pronouns : Third person pronouns and affixes for third person have in common that they are reduced referential devices in terms of Kibrik (2011; ch. 3), who calls them free and bound pronouns. (7) Kiribati: (Austronesian, Mirconesian; Matth. 15:27): intermediate referential device Ao e taku neierei ... and 3 SG say that[ DIST ].woman ‘But she said: "..." ’ Gender markers on anaphoric devices can be classified into pronominal (in a wider sense inspired by Kibrik’s terminology) and non-pronominal . Non-pronominal anaphoric devices ( intermediate referential devices ), such as Kiribati neierei ‘that[ DIST ].woman’ are less grammaticalized than pronominal gender markers such as English she . Intermediate referential devices tend to be incipient gender markers , nouns on their way to be grammaticalized to pronominal indexes. 15