Methodology

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Chapter 4 Supporting evidence

This section is divided in three parts: first we briefly explain the methodology of data gathering. Second, we run statistical typological analysis to verify our hypothesis in the languages of the world. Third, based on GIS system, we display and explain the areal distribution and historical development of numeral classifiers, grammatical genders and grammatical plural markers in the world’s languages.

4.1 Methodology

To gather sufficient data and test our hypothesis, we choose to expand our coverage as much as possible to get a big picture of the languages in the world, and then we go into details for each language. Two main criteria are set in terms of language coverage:

speaker population and language genealogy. For speaker population, we aim at including in our sample a quantity of speakers reaching 60% of the world population, as to follow the actual tendency of the actual world. The second condition of language genealogy is motivated by the fact that language diversity must also be taken into consideration. As an example, English is one of the most spoken languages in the world however it may be resulting from the influence of domains such as economy and politics rather than being solely dependent on a well-structured language system.

Therefore, we need to cover different language groups to test if our hypothesis does predict a correct tendency. Our preliminary data contained 80 languages with their information on numeral classifiers, genders and plural markers. It was obtained via the merge of three biggest open-source database: Gil (2013) for numeral classifiers, Corbett (2013) for genders and Haspelmath (2013) for plural markers, as displayed in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Preliminary database of 80 languages

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Then, we checked which main language groups or geographical regions were not sufficiently covered in these 80 languages to enlarge our inventory obtaining a database of 155 languages, as displayed in Map 7 with each dot representing a language. This result is obtained through the combination of the biggest available open source database: Gil’s (2013) survey on numeral classifier languages, Corbett’s (2013) discussion on genders, Haspelmath’s (2013) research on plural markers, SIL (Ethnologue) language records and information from professor Her research team in the syntax lab of National Chengchi University, e.g. data on 454 numeral classifier languages. The detailed list is provided in Appendix 1.

Map 7. Display of 155 surveyed languages (by dots)

In terms of world population the speakers of the 155 languages we gathered reached 65% of the world’s population according to SIL data, while in terms of language genealogy we covered 30% (39/129) of the main language groups in the world, e.g.

Indo-European, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan among others. Our genealogical coverage may seem insufficient, however we already included in our study 90% (18/20) of the top 20 biggest main language groups in the world (Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo, Austronesian, Dravidian, Japonic, Altaic, Austro-Asiatic, Tai-Kadai, Creole, Nilo-Saharan, Uralic, Quechuan, Hmong-Mien, Mayan, North Caucasian, Language isolates), which account for 99% of the world speakers population according to SIL, therefore we estimate it sufficient. Following the distribution on the map in Map 5, we may realize that Africa, Europe and Asia are covered however Australia and the Americas would need more representative languages. The main reason for this point is that the literature is quite controversial on whether the languages in these areas rely on numeral classifiers, noun classifiers, genders (noun classes) or other types of systems, therefore to avoid incorrect

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judgment of categorization, we do not include languages with different structures attested. Finally, to assure that our coverage in terms of language speakers is sufficient, in Map 8 we also display the language speaker distribution via polygons of the QGIS software. The black area represents the presence of speakers from the 155 languages, showing that in demographic terms we do cover the main parts of the globe, since every continent is colored.

Map 8. Display of 155 surveyed languages (by speaker population)

Before going into the details of the typological evidence it is also necessary to highlight that some records of previous studies database have been modified within our coding. One example would be Chinese. In Gil (2013), Chinese is attested to have numeral classifiers, and noted by Corbett (2013) as genderless which is indeed supported by our data. However, Haspelmath (2013) database on nominal plural categorize Chinese as having optional plural marking on human nouns. As a reminder, we defined that our study only targets grammatical plural markers, this criteria automatically rules out Chinese since it is a language without number agreement.

Therefore in our database we count Chinese as without plural markers. A possible source of confusion could be the Chinese collective marker men, but since it is more analyzed as a clitic without grammatical agreement rather than a grammatical plural marker attached to the noun, we do not count it as a plural marker (Rijkhoff, 2000:240). Further evidence on agreement and definiteness are shown in (23).

(23) Collective marker men in Chinese a. Phrase with one teacher

一 位 老師 出去 了 yi wei laoshi chuqu le one CL-person teacher go out PFV

‘One teacher went out.’

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c. Conflict of indefinite marker and men

*那裡 有 一些 老師 們 nali you yixie laoshi men there is some teachers Collective

‘There is some the teachers there.’

As demonstrated in (23a-b), when men is attached to the noun lao shi ‘teacher’, it seems to reflect plural however it does not have grammatical agreement with the verb.

Moreover, men shows definiteness, as shown in (23c) with the impossible co-occurrence with indefinite marker such as yi xie ‘some’, which is different from the conventional plural markers, e.g. with -s in English, teachers would be indefinite and some teachers entirely grammatical. Therefore, the men is interpreted here as a collective marker which highlights the homogenous feature of the group members, rather than being a grammatical plural marker. As a reminder, the detailed coding and references for each language are provided in Appendix 1.