2. Literature review
2.2 Genders
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counting inanimate as well as animate referents the numerals (obligatorily) concatenate with a certain morpheme, the “numeral classifier”. This morpheme classifies or quantifies the respective nominal referent according to semantic criteria.
Therefore, linguists generally differentiate between classifiers and measure words (quantifiers). These two categories are usually defined as follows: numeral classifiers classify a noun inherently, they designate and specify semantic features inherent to the noun and divide the set of nouns of a certain language into disjunct classes. On the other hand, measure words classify a noun temporarily, it can be combined with different nouns and designate a specific feature of a certain noun that is not inherent to it.
2.2 Genders
Within previous studies, the biggest database is found in Aikhenvald (2000) and WALS (Corbett, 2013) among others. It is generally agreed that genders are the most common systems of nominal classification. They are mainly attested in Africa, Europe, Australia, Oceania, while their distribution is existent but not continuous in the Pacific, Asia and Americas, as demonstrated in Map 5.
Map 5. Genders in the world languages (Aikhenvald, 2000:78)
First of all, it is necessary to point out that the gender discussed here does not only involve the feminine/masculine distinction of nouns, but is related to the noun class system of the world languages. In gender system (also known as noun class system) languages, all nouns of the lexicon are assigned to a number of classes. Saying that a language has two genders implies that there are two classes of nouns which can be
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distinguished syntactically by the agreement they take (Senft, 2015). The most basic distinction would indeed be masculine/feminine as in French where livre ‘book’ is masculine and télécommande ‘remote control’ is feminine. Generally, the assignment logic is considered as opaque. In French for example, little clue can be found to explain why a book is masculine while a remote control is feminine. However, other more transparent noun classes are existent, such as animate/inanimate, edible among others. This profusion is especially spotted in languages from the Niger-Congo group, as an example near 20 noun classes are recognized for Proto-Bantu (Corbett, 1991), the exact number being slightly different when applying different definitions and methodologies. An example may still be demonstrated in Table 1 where we see different meanings related to each noun class, including humans (1/2), trees (3/4), fruits (5/6), liquid masses (6), animals (9/10), abstract nouns (14) among others.
Table 1. Proto-Bantu noun class meanings (Richardson, 1967; Welmers, 1973)
Noun Class Meanings
1/2 Humans, other animates
12/22 Kinship terms, proper names
3/4 Trees, plants, non-paired body parts, other inanimates 5/6 Fruits, paired body parts, natural phenomena
6 Liquid masses
7/8 Manner
9/10 Animals, inanimates
11 Long thin objects, abstract nouns
12/13 Diminutives
14 Abstract nouns, mass nouns
15 Infinitive
16.17,18 Locatives (near, remote, inside)
19 Diminutive
20/22 Augmentive (diminutive)
21 Augmentive pejorative
It is interesting to note that within Proto-Bantu each noun class related to countable nouns can be divided into two branches: one denoting singular and the other plural, as in Table 1 for Humans, the marker of noun class 1 is for pointing out that the noun belongs to the category of humans and is singular. On the other hand, noun class 2 also highlights the human feature of the noun, but with plurality. Nevertheless, for sake of simplicity, the two respectively related variants such as noun class 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6 among others are combined in the same raw since they refer to the
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same semantic category. Following this logic, categories with uncountable nouns will only have one class, since they do not need to differentiate between singular and plural form, e.g. noun class including liquid masses (6), abstract nouns (11), abstract nouns and mass nouns (14).
It is commonly viewed that the main function of genders is to facilitate referent tracking in discourse through semantic classification of nouns (Dixon, 1986; Nichols, 1989; Corbett, 1991). As demonstrated in (6), thanks to gender differentiation, the speaker can avoid repeating the entire noun while keeping the same level of precision:
since in French ‘book’ is masculine while ‘remote control is feminine’, the two nouns may be directly replaced by the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’.
(6) Example of referent tracking with genders (French)
A : Le livre et la télécommande sont où ? the(M) book(M) and the(F) remote control (F) are where?
‘Where are the book and the remote control?’
B : Il est sur la table et elle est sur la chaise he is on the(F) table(F) and she is on the chair
‘He is on the table and she is on the chair.’
Such a situation would not be possible in Chinese: the neutral pronoun ta ‘it’ would create ambiguity such as ta zai zhuozi shang ta zai yizi shang ‘it is on the table and it is on the chair’. Without the gender helping referent tracking, the speaker would be forced to point out the nouns, as in shu zai zhuozi shang yaokongqi zai yizi shang ‘the book is on the table and the remote control is on the chair’. Otherwise the hearer would not be able to know which referent is on the table and which one is on the chair.
Similar situation is found with English which only has a pronominal gender system, it is explained in the later part of this section. Nevertheless, non-gender languages will rely on different ways to fill the gap of ease in discourse. This will be explained in the theoretical discussion sections.
To avoid confusion in terminology, it is important to highlight that nouns such as
‘brother’ and ‘sister’ denoting male and female are not enough to constitute a gender system. As stated by Corbett (2013), the defining characteristic of gender is agreement: a language has a gender system only if we find different agreements ultimately dependent on nouns of different types. In other words, there must be evidence for gender outside the nouns themselves, as demonstrated by the example with Russian in (7). The three phrases display similar number, case and syntactic
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structure yet the different genders of the nouns are reflected in agreement to the verb:
‘magazine’ is masculine, ‘book’ is feminine and ‘letter’ is neutral.
(7) Gender agreement with verb in Russian (Corbett, 2013) a. Žurnal ležal na stole.
magazine(M) lay(M) on table ‘The magazine lay on the table.’
b. Kniga ležal-a na stole.
book(F) lay(F) on table ‘The book lay on the table.’
c. Pis´mo ležal-o na stole.
letter(N) lay(N) on table ‘The letter lay on the table.’
Following this logic, Chinese does have lexical contrasts such as nanhai ‘boy’ versus nühai ‘girl’, but does not have a gender system. This is a matter of lexical semantics, and not a gender system. As demonstrated in (8), we can see that the verb does not show agreement with the different subjects, as opposed to the Russian sample in (7).
(8) No gender agreement with verb in Chinese a. zazhi bujian le.
magazine not.see PFV ‘The magazine disappeared.’
b. shu bujian le.
book not.see PFV ‘The book disappeared.’
c. xin bujian le.
letter not.see PFV ‘The letter disappeared.’
Another confusing example would be the changes obtained from derivational morphology (as in English: actor/actress), once again this type does not form a gender system. The reason is that there can be numerous similar oppositions, concrete versus abstract for example, none of which would be counted as grounds for postulating a
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grammatical category in the language in question (Corbett, 2013). Similarly, inflectional markers are not adequate to propose a gender system: as in French, the word final inflection –e is often viewed as an indicator of feminine gender as in (9).
(9) Masculine and Feminine nouns in French a. pont bridge, masculine
rideau curtain, masculine b. table table, feminine
chaise chair, feminine
However, numerous exceptions can be found, as an example livre ‘book’, téléphone
‘telephone’, exemple ‘example’ are all masculine nouns even if they do have a word final -e, as demonstrated in (10) by the agreement they take on the determiner and adjective. This shows once more that agreement evidence should be our primary basis for definition of gender systems.
(10) Agreement of exceptions in French a. un grand livre.
one(M) big(M) book(M)
‘a big book’
b. un nouveau téléphone.
one(M) new(M) telephone(M)
‘a new telephone’
In general, we may observe that agreement is the principal criteria for the definition of gender system, whether involving verbs, determiners, adjectives, among others.
Nevertheless, one question may arise when analyzing languages such as English, which display gender differences on pronouns but not on verbs, as mentioned previously in this section. An example is demonstrated in (11), the pronouns do change according to masculine/feminine subjects but the verb keeps the same form.
(11) Pronominal gender in English a. He is tall.
b. She is tall.
Languages like English, which mark gender only on personal pronouns, are referred to as pronominal gender languages. They are difficult to categorize for two reasons, as
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redundancy of gender marking, which is considered to be the main function of gender:to facilitate reference tracking and discourse coherence. In other words, genders are normally marked across word classes such as determiners, adjectives, verbs among others, as shown in (12) with French, but pronominal gender systems do not display this phenomenon, as demonstrated in (11). Second, pronouns are the least canonical of the possible target for agreement: they are phrase-external and even clause-external with regard to their antecedent while agreements targets are expected to share a local domain with their antecedent, e.g. the phrase.
(12) Gender agreement across word classes in French La grande voiture est arrivée.
the(F) big(F) car(F) is arrived(F)
‘The big car has arrived.’
Nevertheless, we still count pronominal gender systems as grammatical gender systems in our study due to two reasons. First, most scholars do include the connection between the anaphoric pronoun and its antecedent as agreement (Barlow 1991, 1992:134–152; Siewierska 2004:221–227; Corbett 1991, 2001, 2006, 2013).
The main reason for such a choice is as stated and demonstrated by Audring (2008:96): co-reference alone cannot explain why pronouns mirror the features of their antecedents in languages that do not have a semantics-based gender system. As an example in (13), the semantic of the two sentences is the same but the pronouns still vary according to the noun’s gender, which would be difficult to explain without referring to agreement: in (13a) fototoestel ‘camera’ is of neutral gender while camera
‘camera’ in (13b) is of common gender, resulting in the use of the different pronouns dit and deze. Second, even though the behavior of pronominal gender and common gender is different, e.g. the gender system of English is definitely less pervasive than in French or Russian, including them, however, makes little difference to the overall picture, since they are rare (Corbett, 2013).
(13) Agreement evidence for pronominal gender systems in Dutch a. Dit fototoestel is niet van mij, het is van mijn broer.
DEF.SG.N camera(N) is not of me 3SG.N is of my brother
‘This camera is not mine, it’s my brother’s.’
b. Deze camera is niet van mij, die is van mijn broer.
DEF.SG.C camera(C) is not of me, 3SG.C is of my brother
‘This camera is not mine, it’s my brother’s.’
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As a summary, the main purpose of the gender system (or noun class system) is to facilitate discourse by providing a device of reference tracking. This system classifies all the nouns of a language into specific classes, which can be recognized through agreement with different constituents of the clause, e.g. determiner, adjective, verb among others. Following this criterion, it is then necessary to differentiate between grammaticalized gender systems and sporadic features contrasts. The second situation is only a difference in the referents of the nouns, as the masculine/feminine distinction between ‘brother’ & ‘sister’ or ‘actor’ & ‘actress’, which can be obtained via different nouns in the lexicon or inflectional/derivational morphology.