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On 23.03.17 19:21, Alan Rumsey wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Calibri">Those of us who
have worked on languages with 2-5 such classes (in my case
Ungarinyin) have sometimes called them ‘genders’, while
those who have worked on languages with more have called
them ‘noun classes’. </span></p>
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<br>
I had presupposed in my earlier messages that there is no
distinction between these two types, and that they should be called
"genders" – I took this as established by Corbett (1991). As Johanna
Nichols noted, the term "noun class" is vague, so for
cross-linguistic purposes, "gender" is surely better.<br>
<br>
(One might feel that neglecting the sex-based vs. non-sex-based
distinction is not such a good idea, as in Bernhard Wälchli's
message, but it seems to me that one really shouldn't use the term
"gender" anymore for sex-based distinctions, at least in typology. I
take Corbett (1991) as foundational for all of us.)<br>
<br>
But the problems with Corbett (1991) are<br>
<br>
– that his definition of gender is based on the notion of
"agreement" (for which there is no clear definition, cf. Corbett
(2006), who only provides a definition of canonical agreement)<br>
<br>
– that the distinction between "gender" and "numeral classifier" is
(in part) based on the idea that gender markers are affixes and
numeral classifiers are free forms, but there is no clear definition
of "affix" (there is a definition of "free form", as occurring on
its own in a complete utterance – and numeral classifiers are surely
bound by this criterion)<br>
<br>
– that the distinction between "features" (like gender) and markers
(like classifiers) is far from clear-cut<br>
<br>
Moreover, Corbett himself has given up the distinction between
gender and other classifiers (there's only a canonical definition of
gender now), as have others such as Ruth Singer, Sasha Aikhenvald,
and Frank Seifart. But I still want to talk about "gender" as a
comparative concept (as well as about "numeral classifiers" – a
student of mine just wrote a nice MA thesis about this topic).<br>
<br>
Guillaume Segerer points out that some Atlantic languages have up to
31 classes, and it would seem odd to exclude them from having gender
on the basis of a definition that arbitrarily stops at 20. I agree
that this would seem odd, but I need to point out that <b>it
wouldn't matter</b>. Comparative concepts are not designed to give
the same results in all cases that seem similar enough to us (or
some of us), but <b>to allow rigorous, intersubjective
cross-linguistic comparison</b>. Comparative concepts must
sometimes be arbitrary, because the world consists of many
continuities, and if we still want to discuss differences with
words, we need to make arbitrary cuts (think of the importance of
SMEs in economics – small and medium-size enterprises, defined
arbitrarily as having fewer than 250 employees).<br>
<br>
Maybe it will turn out that some other, less arbitrary concept will
give even better cross-linguistic generalizations. But for the time
being, we have the term "gender" as a comparative concept
(especially in legacy works such as Corbett's WALS maps), and my
definition ("A <b>gender system</b> (= a system of gender markers)
is a system of genifiers which includes no more than 20 genifiers
and which is not restricted to numeral modifiers") seems to be the
only definitional proposal currently available.<br>
<br>
Best wishes,<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
IPF 141199
Nikolaistrasse 6-10
D-04109 Leipzig
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