Gender and Noun Class

[Francesca Di Garbo]

Dear Don,

I think it would be good to follow Dik's suggestion to use the 
conventional cover term and specify that, synchronically, there is no 
clear semantic or morpho-phonological transparent criterion for gender 
assignment.  However, I would use the label /gender/ rather than /noun 
class/. /G//ender/ is, in fact, established in the typological 
literature (see WALS for example) as a cover term to refer to ALL  
systems  of noun classification which are based on agreement. As you 
say, the difference between gender and noun class systems mostly lies on 
the number of distinctions which are found in a given system (and on the 
tradition which is used among experts of a language/language family). 
You mention that the system in Uduk is based on two distinctions. So, to 
me, this would sound like one more reason to call it gender.

Just an additional question. You say that the two genders are "for the 
most part arbitrary":  Which are the nouns that display non-arbitrary or 
less arbitrary gender assignment?

Good luck with your work and best regards,

Francesca Di Garbo

On 2013-05-10 13:15, Bakker, Dik wrote:
> Hi Don,
>
> I am not aware of any general term, but I think noun class
> IS a/the neutral term. I think one should use it, maybe with
> a footnote or short remark motivating it the way you do
> in your message ('maybe historically based on semantics,
> but synchronically not any longer etc', in fact just as in
> many languages where, in the case of a two- or three-way system,
> gender is still the term, even if the vast majority of nouns have no
> (real) gender whatsoever, and some have the 'wrong' type,
> such as 'meisje' 'girl' in dutch, which has neuter rather than
> feminine gender, since it is originally derived from a diminutive
> (meid-DIM), but no longer analysed as such.
>
> Best,
>
> Dik
>
>
> Dik Bakker
> Dept. of General Linguistics
> Universities of Amsterdam & Lancaster
> tel (+31) 35 544 75 78
> http://www.uva.nl/profiel/d.bakker
>
> Societas Linguistica Europaea
> Secretary/Treasurer
> http://www.societaslinguistica.eu/
> http://www.linguisticsociety.eu/
>
> ________________________________________
> Van: Discussion List for ALT [LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org] namens Don Killian [donald.killian at HELSINKI.FI]
> Verzonden: vrijdag 10 mei 2013 10:19
> To: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Onderwerp: Gender and Noun Class
>
> Dear all,
>
> I have read quite a number of books and articles by this point on this
> subject, but despite everything I haven't been able to come to a
> conclusion on something, so I thought to ask the list for suggestions
> (particularly since some of the authors on the subject are on this list!).
>
> The difference between gender and noun classes seems to be mostly
> tradition rather than actual linguistic differentiations (perhaps noun
> classes are generally viewed to have more categories, but even that
> isn't absolute), and I've run into a terminology problem with a current
> grammatical description I'm working on... mainly on what might be a more
> neutral term incorporating both of these ideas.
>
> Uduk differentiates all nouns into two categories which are for the most
> part arbitrary, both phonologically and semantically (in contrast to
> Corbett's comment: "When we analyse assignment systems of languages from
> different families we find that genders always have a semantic core.")
>
> As Uduk is NOT using semantics as the main criteria for differentiation
> (at least not synchronically), I would like to use a more neutral term
> than gender or noun class to refer to these categories. Each time I have
> used gender or noun class, a number of readers have associated
> biological gender/animacy with the first or Bantu-style noun class
> systems with the second, and it can often end up detracting from my
> focus.  I'd rather avoid any sort of general debate on what a noun
> class/gender system actually is, and instead focus on the actual
> grammatical system of Uduk.
>
> Hence my question to the list.. IS there a more neutral term than noun
> class or gender to refer to grammatical categories of nouns in a
> language?  Agreement class isn't quite adequate because it also doesn't
> necessarily refer to this being a nominal property (and noun agreement
> class is too cumbersome of a term). Nominal category is awkward,
> although possible.
>
> I'm open to further suggestions people have.
>
> Best,
>
> Don
>
>
> --
> Don Killian
> Researcher in African Linguistics
> Department of Modern Languages
> PL 24 (Unioninkatu 40)
> FI-00014 University of Helsinki
> +358 (0)44 5016437

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