[Lingtyp] genifiers (gender markers/classifiers)

Tue Mar 21 00:00:01 UTC 2017

Dear Ruth

Are you familiar with my book Classifiers: a typology of noun categorization devices (OUP, 2000/2003)? It contains a comprehensive typology of noun categorization devices and show clearly that a dichotomy of genders/noun classes versus classifiers (as advocated by a few people) is obsolete.

It also introduced the idea of a split gender system (different subsystems of genders depending on agreement targets) found in many languages, and outlined a typology of languiages with classifiers in multiple envronments (e.g. possessive, verbal, deictic - etc).

It is a long book (Marcin Kilarski and Ellen Contini-Morava read it and took account of it); main points have been summarized in the encyclopedia article (which is enclosed).

An additional summary is found in my Chapter on 'A typology of noun categorization devices' forthcoming (due  March 2017) within The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic typology, ed by Aikhenvald and Dixon (Cambridge University Press). I enclose a proof copy here. CUP is now thinking of organizing a launch of this book at the ALT meeting.

The term classifier is useful (I myself and other people - Denny, Dixon, and further respectable scholars published a lot on it). It can be used to refer to phenomena other than noun categorization devices (as in Athabaskan linguistics, in some Australian studies, and - well, discussion of Thai by Mary Haas - you will find these mentioned at the very beginning of my book). It does not refer to a disparate set of phenomena - unless one engages in rather futile reinterpretation of terms etc.

I also enclose the most recent version of Oxford Bibliography online on classifiers (if you have any comments, please send them to me - I will be doing another revision this year). And also the biblio on Arawak languages  - they are excellent for lovers on noun categorization devices, most of them having two (rarer three) genders in cross-referencing/personal pronouns and largish systems of classifiers/noun classes in other environment. They have been described as such since before 2000.

The term 'genifier' - what a horror! On the other hand, we live in a free world, and people are free to twist the language as they wish. A young relative of Bob Dixon's once suggested that a putative blend of a dog with a rabbit should be called either dabbit or rog. So 'genifier' is perhaps part of this 'roggish'/'dabbitish' exercise. Excellent for a six-year old!

Regards

Sasha

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, PhD, DLitt, FAHA

Distinguished Professor and Australian Laureate Fellow

Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre

James Cook University

PO Box 6811, Cairns, Queensland 4870, Australia

http://www.jcu.edu.au/faess/JCUPRD_043649.html

mobile 0400 305315, office 61-7-40421117

fax 61-7-4042 1880  http://www.aikhenvaldlinguistics.com/

https://research.jcu.edu.au/researchatjcu/research/lcrc

________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Ruth Singer <rsinger at unimelb.edu.au>
Sent: Tuesday, 21 March 2017 9:25 AM
To: Martin Haspelmath
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] genifiers (gender markers/classifiers)

Hi Martin,

I agree, that the gender/classifier distinction is no longer useful. See also work by Kilarski and Contini-Morava in this vein:
Contini-Morava, Ellen & Marcin Kilarski. 2013. Functions of nominal classification. Language Sciences 40. 263–299. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2013.03.002.
Kilarski, Marcin. 2013. Nominal Classification: a history of its study from the classical period to the present. Amsterdam: John  Benjamins.

What I've done to solve this terminology issue is to extend the term 'classifier' to cover any kind of nominal classification device (Singer 2010, 2012, 2016). The term 'classifier' is used to cover a pretty disparate group of phenomena anyhow. The terms 'gender' and 'numeral classifier' can then be reserved for subsets of the general category 'classifier' like you suggest.

This approach fits with Corbett and Fedden's recent ideas too as they propose gender as a special kind of nominal classification.

Corbett, Greville G. & Sebastian Fedden. 2017. Canonical gender. Journal of Linguistics(available on CJO June 2015). 1–37. doi:10.1017/S0022226715000195.

Fedden, Sebastian & Greville G. Corbett (forthcoming). Genders and classifiers as concurrent systems: a first typology.

Singer, Ruth. 2010. Creativity in the use of gender agreement in Mawng: how the discourse functions of a gender system can approach those of a classifier system. Studies in Language 34. 382–416.

Singer, Ruth. 2012. Do nominal classifiers mediate selectional restrictions? an investigation of the function of semantically-based nominal classifiers in Mawng (Iwaidjan, Australian). Linguistics 50. 955–990.

Singer, Ruth. 2016. The dynamics of nominal classification: productive and lexicalised uses of gender agreement in Mawng. (Pacific Linguistics 642). Mouton de Gruyter. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=34mlCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=%22dynamics+of+nominal+classification%22&ots=X-IKgrhldm&sig=1721LueyC8yH1M2sQ6gdVvyituM.

On 21 March 2017 at 02:05, Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de<mailto:haspelmath at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:
Dear typologists,

Cross-linguistic terminology (comparative concepts) should be both clear and conform to the tradition, in order to preserve continuity with the older literature.

In the case of the terms "gender" and "classifier", it seems that these two goals cannot be achieved simultaneously without coining a new term ("genifier").

There is quite a bit of general literature on gender/classifiers (e.g. Dixon 1986; Grinevald 2000; Aikhenvald 2000; Seifart 2010; Corbett & Fedden 2016), but none of these works provide clear definitions of these terms, and the more recent literature (e.g. Corbett & Fedden, and also Seifart & Payne 2007) actually emphasizes that there is no reason to say that gender markers and classifiers are distinct phenomena in the world's languages.

Thus, it seems to me that we need the new term "genifier", perhaps defined as follows:

A genifier system is a system of grammatical markers which occur on nominal modifiers, predicates or anaphoric pronouns, and each of which expresses (i.e. normally reflects, but sometimes contributes) a broad property other than person and number of the controlling noun (i.e. for nominal modifiers: the modificatum, for predicates: an argument, for anaphoric pronouns: the antecedent).

The alternative to coining a new term, it seems to me, would be to extend the meaning of the term "gender" or of the term "classifier" in such a way that there would be no more continuity with the earlier literature.

Given the above definition of genifier, we can perhaps define "gender" and "numeral classifier" as follows (as arbitrary subcategories of genifiers, defined just to preserve continuity with the older literature):

A gender system (= 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.

A numeral classifier system is a system of genifiers which is restricted to numeral (plus optionally other adnominal) modifiers.

I wonder if the above definitions have any obvious defects, i.e. any cases that everyone would call gender or numeral classifier and that wouldn't fall under the definitions, or cases that fall under them and that nobody would call gender or numeral classifier.

Note that the new term "genifier" also has the advantage that the whole domain can be called genification (rather than the cumbersome "noun classification/nominal classification", which is also vague because there are all kinds of "classes" or "classifications" of nouns which have nothing to do with genifiers).

Any comments?

Thanks,
Martin

*************************

References

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2000. Classifiers: A typology of noun categorization devices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Corbett, Greville G. & Sebastian Fedden. 2016. Canonical gender. Journal of Linguistics 52(3). 495–531.
Dixon, R. M. W. 1986. Noun classes and noun classification in typological perspective. In Colette Grinevald Craig (ed.), Noun classes and categorization, 105–112. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Grinevald, Colette G. 2000. A morphosyntactic typology of classifiers. In Gunter Senft (ed.), Systems of nominal classification, 50–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Seifart, Frank. 2010. Nominal classification. Language and Linguistics Compass 4(8). 719–736.
Seifart, Frank & Doris L. Payne. 2007. Nominal classification in the North West Amazon: Issues in areal diffusion and typological characterization. International Journal of American Linguistics 73(4). 381–387.

--
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de<mailto:haspelmath at shh.mpg.de>)
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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Dr Ruth Singer
DECRA Postdoctoral Fellow
Linguistics Program / Research Unit for Indigenous Language
School of Languages and Linguistics
Faculty of Arts
University of Melbourne 3010
Tel. +61 3 90353774
http://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person2621
http://indiglang.arts.unimelb.edu.au/
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