32.1638, Review: Cognitive Science; Historical Linguistics; Semantics; Typology: Di Garbo, Olsson, Wälchli (2019)

Tue May 11 19:09:14 UTC 2021

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-1638. Tue May 11 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.1638, Review: Cognitive Science; Historical Linguistics; Semantics; Typology: Di Garbo, Olsson, Wälchli (2019)

Moderator: Malgorzata E. Cavar (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Student Moderator: Jeremy Coburn, Lauren Perkins
Managing Editor: Becca Morris
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Everett Green, Sarah Robinson, Nils Hjortnaes, Joshua Sims, Billy Dickson
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Jeremy Coburn <jecoburn at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Date: Tue, 11 May 2021 15:08:52
From: Mayowa Akinlotan [mayorakinsforpaper at yahoo.com]
Subject: Grammatical gender and linguistic complexity II

Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36700417

Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-4224.html

EDITOR: Francesca  Di Garbo
EDITOR: Bruno  Olsson
EDITOR: Bernhard  Wälchli
TITLE: Grammatical gender and linguistic complexity II
SUBTITLE: World-wide comparative studies
PUBLISHER: Language Science Press
YEAR: 2019

REVIEWER: Mayowa Akinlotan, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

SUMMARY

The book “Grammatical gender and linguistic complexity: World-wide comparative
studies” is the Volume Two of a two-volume collection of chapters showing the
relation between grammatical gender and linguistic complexity through
world-wide comparative studies. In other words, this volume extends Volume
One, which provides data and findings in typological studies, showing general
and specific issues from gender systems and complexity in individual
languages. The present review focuses specifically on Volume Two, which,
unlike  Volume One (10 chapters), has five chapters. 

Chapter One, titled Introduction, introduces the concerns raised and discussed
in the book. This introductory chapter, written by the editors of both volumes
, argues for the importance of the book, including the significant
contributions made in the subsequent four chapters. Among numerous
contributions made by the book, this chapter shows that readers will not only
know better about the complexity,difficulty, and complication of gender
systems across a range of studies, but also that readers become better in the
understanding of structure, meaning and linguistic variation, which almost
every language demonstrates to a varying degree. 

Chapter Two The evolving complexity of gender agreement systems, written by
Francesca Di Garbo and Matti Miestamo, investigates complexity in gender
systems across 36 languages representing Africa (e.g. Bantu,
Ghana-Togo-Mountain), Australia (e.g. Gunwinggu), North-America, Papunesia
(Chamorro), and Eurasia ( e.g. Basque, Greek), showing how complexity of
gender system varies from one language to the other. In this excellent
chapter, the authors report that complexity of gender system can vary from
those languages exhibiting expansion, which can be interpreted to mean
processes of complexification, while other languages exhibit patterns
representing retention, lack of complexity, emergence, reduction, and loss.
Such are the dynamics and dimensions of structural variation underlying gender
system complexity. 

This chapter certainly ranks high among those works showing the
state-of-the-art in gender system complexity, not only because of such big
data but also of significant findings which show that gender system is perhaps
much more complex, complicated, and variable than thought. Although the
distinction between simple and complex gender system remains fuzzy, the
authors are able to clearly show that complexity of gender system can be
understood in terms of simple/complex systems, and that complexity of gender
remains “an evolving variable” which is constrained by an infinite set of
internal and external linguistic factors. 

Chapter Three, quite an extensive study as reflected in the title, The
feminine anaphoric gender gram, incipient gender marking, maturity, and
extracting anaphoric gender markers from parallel texts, examines gendered
feminine anaphoric such as she/her in 816 languages, using functional
definitions that allow for the study of gender without recourse to the
traditionally aligned concepts of noun class, agreement and system. According
to the findings presented, simplicity in gender systems is found in many
languages. Such gender simplicity is found to be “representing incipient
gender from a grammaticalization perspective.” As reported, there are 629
languages which do not exhibit a feminine anaphoric gender gram (i.e.
prononminal such as she/her), while only 187 languages do exhibit this
functionality. Meanwhile, when anaphoric function for animate nouns that are
highly restricted in uses/usages, or when there is less systematic use of
bound affixes on the verbs, including where there is less grammaticalisation
of the pronominal, no feminine anaphoric gender gram is identified, a scenario
that is a function of the automatic extraction used in the study.

Chapter Four On the distribution and complexity of gender and numeral
classifiers, which is authored by Kaus Sinnemaki, comparatively examines the
presence of gender and numeral classifiers across a genealogically and areally
stratified sample of 360 different languages worldwide, showing the extent to
which complexity trade-off between gender and numeral classifier is present in
these languages. Using a generalised linear mixed method, it is shown that a
strong inverse relationship exists between gender and numeral classifier, a
scenario that is independent of the genealogical affiliation and geographical
area of the languages. The distribution further shows that certain languages
exhibit a particular tendency in which multiple patterns in the same
functional contexts are often deselected. Since linguistic complexity is a
universal phenomenon, then the chapter, which excellently draws on a large
data sample, can rightly inform us about the nature of linguistic complexity.
Hence, the chapter further provides additional support for the hypothesis that
all languages are equally complex. 

The last chapter, which is Chapter Five, titled the dynamics of gender
complexity, and co-authored by Bernhard Walchli and Francesca Di Garbo,
conceptualises grammatical gender as a grammatical variable that is suspect to
change. In other words, complexity in grammatical gender can develop, grow,
and dissipate over time. Hence, this chapter complements arguments in the
volume by showing that the gender system is not only variable but also
strongly related to change, which can be reflected in a diachronic process.
Specifically, it is argued that hierarchical patterning, which is “a powerful
decomplexifying mechanism”, is related to the development of (or lack of)
complexity in the gender system. Another argument put forward in the chapter
is that gender as a grammatical category shares origin with “referent-based
gender”, which emanates from the animacy hierarchy. 

EVALUATION

This volume provides an array of data from a wide range of languages to extend
the discussion on complexity of gender system started in Volume One. The book
shows that complexity in grammatical gender is present in a varying degree in
all the languages discussed, and that the complexity is related to a number of
subtle factors. All of thechapters are very comprehensive, detailed, and
thought-provoking. Although discussion of linguistic complexity is such a
delicate one, all the chapters clearly show that complexity can be measured in
different ways, using known and innovative metrics. For instance, Bernhard
Walchi in Chapter 3 not only provides a fine-grained procedure for similar
future studies to follow, the author carefully shows how fuzzy concepts such
as linguistic complexity can be measured and operationalised in known and
lesser-known languages.

Also, all the data presented from languages across the different regions of
the world means that readers, researchers and students, are able to
extrapolate a catalogue of understanding and perspectives not only on
grammatical gender and linguistic complexity, but also on how languages
worldwide converge and diverge in the same grammatical categories. For
instance, Chapter 5, The dynamics of gender complexity clearly illustrates how
diachronic understanding of gender marking advances our knowledge of gender
systems in terms of what they are today, and how they might develop further.
Such an understanding clearly relates to the issue of structural complexity,
structural variation and meaning, all of which correlate with other
grammatical categories to grow, mature, or dissipate. Except for Chapter 3,
which is a little longer than other chapters, the book is a state-of-the-art
research report that would greatly be useful for interested researchers and
students who want to know more about how gender system and complexity operate
in different languages worldwide.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Mayowa Akinlotan is currently with University of Texas at Austin and also a
Humboldt Research Fellow with Alexander von Humboldt, a fellowship being
hosted at Katholische Universitait Eichstatt-Ingoldstadt, Germany.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

***************************    LINGUIST List Support    ***************************
 The 2020 Fund Drive is under way! Please visit https://funddrive.linguistlist.org
  to find out how to donate and check how your university, country or discipline
     ranks in the fund drive challenges. Or go directly to the donation site:
                   https://crowdfunding.iu.edu/the-linguist-list

                        Let's make this a short fund drive!
                Please feel free to share the link to our campaign:
                    https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-32-1638	
----------------------------------------------------------