gender assignement : academic answers needed URGENT PLZ !!!

[Joseph Reisdoerfer]

The explanation is quite simple: Astuce is feminine in French ­ une astuce,
http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/astuce -  and the speaker, who is probably
bilingual, uses, correctly, the feminine form of the Arabic demonstrative.

Best Regards, JR
-- 
Dr Reisdoerfer Joseph, hdr
Affiliation: Professeur à l'Athénée grand-ducal; Professeur associé à
l¹Université du Luxembourg
Adresse: 60, rue de la Chapelle, L-9513 Wiltz Grand-Duché de Luxembourg
Tél & Fax: 352 552004; 352 552001
Courriel: joseph.reisdoerfer at ci.rech.lu
Blog: http://laurette.blog.lemonde.fr/
Pagina domestica:  
http://web.mac.com/charleselie1/iWeb/JR%20/Pagina%20domestica.html




17/05/09 15:27, « mostari hind » <hmostari at yahoo.com> scripsit :

> 
> 
>> Hi , 
>> in code switching, it is generally agreed that the speaker uses his L1 in
>> order to assign gender to L2 following his L1 equivalent or the phonological
>> shape of L1 such as :
>>  
>> di: k  sachet 
>>  this  bag 
>>  
>> here , the speaker uses a feminine demonstrative pronoun ( dik in arabic )
>> because he translates  sachet into arabic ; which is feminine  ( chkara ) .
>>  
>> But , i have found that sometimes the speaker assigns a gender though he does
>> not really  know the equivalent word in his L1 , basing on sonority ie i
>> think that the speaker feels whether such word in Fr sounds more feminine or
>> masculine such as :
>>  
>> dik l'astuce 
>> the equivalent french word ' astuce' is unknown in arabic , so here , the
>> only explanation i found  is that the speaker thinks that the phonological
>> sonority of 'astuce ' is more feminine than masculine . Though in reality ,
>> the french word astuce is masculine
>> so, my question is : can you give to my explantion a more academic
>> terminology , and do you agree with me ?
>> all the best 
>>  
>> Dr Mostari 
> 
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20090517/c103d673/attachment.htm>