GENDER PERSON NUMBER

Question 1

Grammatical gender definition

Answer 1

(Semi-)arbitrary distribution of nouns in two or more groups.
>Marked MORPHOLOGICALLY.
>>NOT morphosyntactically.
Eg Spanish
a. la elefanta negr-a 
b. las elefantas negr-as 
c. el gato negr-o 
d. los gatos negr-os

 GENDER IS AGREEMENT.
> Various elements agree with the gender of the noun.
»If there is no agreement it is not considered gender.

Question 2

examples of grammatical gender

Answer 2

> Mostly nominal agreement (within the NP).
Determiners and adjectives like in Spanish.
Demonstratives, relative pronouns…
also verbal

Question 3

What are the grounds of groupings? semantics?

Answer 3

When there are two classes.
> Usually feminine and masculine.
» But grammatical gender is not gender!

1. With humans, it usually matches sex.
2. falls apart with animals
3. With inanimates it makes no sense to look for a match:
   French: la mer ‘the sea’ FEM
   Spanish: el mar ‘the sea’ MASC

> not always a semantic core, never explains all affiliations
even more blurred if old system

Question 4

what Systems of noun classes occur in langs around the world?

Answer 4

Many languages have more than two classes.
»Up to ?60 in some African languages.
> Commonly around 20.
> Also large numbers is PNG.

WALS: 257 langs accounted for.
- 112 have noun classes.
> I.e. a significant minority.

2 CLASSES:
> 50 langs/sample
FEMME/MASC: romance
ANIMATE/INANIMATE: basque (less freq.)

4 CLASSES
> 12 langs/sample
Common in Australia

5+ CLASSES
> 26 langs/sample
Prevalent in Africa

Question 5

NOUN CLASSES: Australian systems

Answer 5

Often 4 classes
Typically:
1. Masculine
2. Feminine
3. Vegetable
4. Body-parts

Bininj Gun-wok (Gunwinyguan, NPN, Australia).
Dyirbal (PN, Dyirbalic, Australia)

Question 6

NOUN CLASSES: African systems

Answer 6

Large number of classes
> More semantic complexity than in Aus
>Intersects with grammatical functions.
     - Plural.
     -Diminutive, augmentative.
EG Hamar (Afroasiatic, Ethiopia)
Higher/Lower animates, inanimates, uncountables > M F PL (paucal)

Up to 60 classes:
EG. Baïnounk Gubeëher (Nyun, Senegal)

Question 7

Functions of gender systems

Answer 7

> Some consider that it has no function at all.
- Trudgill (1999), McWhorter (2001)

> Reference tracking.
Disambiguation.
- Some neurolinguistics evidence (Barber & Carreiras 2003)

Noun classes # classifiers
2 diff ways langs classify nouns

Question 8

PERSON&NUMBER systems

Answer 8

All languages in the world

have person and number distinctions?

Question 9

Variation in person categories

Answer 9

MOST standard: THREE persons.
> But there is variation:

> Not all languages have a first person plural.
> In some languages speakers say
>> ‘me and you(s)’
>> ‘me’ and ‘him/her/them’.
SO: 1pl = 1sg + 2 or 1sg + 3 

CLUSIVITY in first person plural:
> Inclusive: addressee included. (me and you(s))
> Exclusive: addressee excluded. (me and them (not you(s)))
» Found in a significant minority of languages.
EG Mwotlap, Vanuatu

SOCIAL + CULTURAL VARIATION
Kintax
EG Dalabon harmonics
Murrinh Patha

Question 10

Variation in number categories

Answer 10

> Singular / plural.
Dual
Trial.
Paucal ‘a few’.

Greenberg’s universal 34:
No language has a trial number unless it has a dual.
No language has a dual unless it has a plural.

Many languages MERGE NUMBERS for some persons.
> In their pronoun systems.
» EG 2sg/pl you in English.
» Usually the contrast surfaces elsewhere. (EG yourself/yourselves.)

Singular / dual / plural.
Minimal / unit augmented / augmented.

Minimal/augmented systems:
> intersection between clusivity and number
+1 = augmented by 1
+2 = augmented by 2