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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Hi Mostari,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>I don’t think there’s any evidence to support a
claim that “astuce” sounds more masculine. There is a study by
Tucker et al. (1970) (reference below) that said /s/ is more likely to indicate
feminine gender to speakers. Moreover, the /la/ sequence in the beginning is
also more likely to prime the feminine gender given its homophony with the feminine
article /la/.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>I think a more intuitive explanation is that the masculine
gender is the default gender of nonce borrowing in Arabic. This would have to
be corroborated by some sort of outside evidence, of course. It seems from Najat
Benchiba’s article “Phonologic and Semantic Considerations of Grammatical
Gender in Moroccan Arabic and English Code-Switching. A Levelling Phenomenon”
that this is basically correct for Moroccan Arabic-English code-switching, but
that phonological and semantic factors may make a difference. The default
gender is what surfaces when the gender of the item can’t be retrieved for
whatever reason. Here it seems that the speaker just might not know the gender
at all (since he or she also does not recognize that /l/ is not part of the lexeme),
so s/he just guesses masculine by default.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>--Jason<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><img width=625 height=85 id="Picture_x0020_1"
src="cid:image002.png@01C9D705.E8C56A30"></span><span style='font-size:10.5pt;
color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'>Jason F. Siegel<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'>Ph.D. Student,
Linguistics & French Linguistics<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'>Department of
French & Italian<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'>Ballantine Hall
642<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'>1020 East
Kirkwood Avenue<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'>Indiana
University<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'>Bloomington, IN
47405-7103<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'>USA<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;color:#1F497D'>siegeljf@indiana.edu<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
owner-lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
[mailto:owner-lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu] <b>On Behalf Of </b>mostari
hind<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, May 17, 2009 1:59 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu<br>
<b>Subject:</b> a mistake in asking about gender assignement : academic answers
needed URGENT PLZ !!!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br>
<span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>dear all , <br>
I am awfully sorry because I wrote the contrary of what I
meant: the speaker states :<br>
<b>dak l'astuce</b> instead of <b>dik l'astuce</b> because astuce is a
feminine word but for the speaker it sounds more masculine and here we cannot
speak of translation, so what do you think so ? <br>
can we really speak about phonological sonority , ie , using
the speaker's feeling of what words sounds like ? <br>
all the best <br>
Mostari <br>
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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