[Lingtyp] genifiers (gender markers/classifiers)

[Sebastian Nordhoff]

Dear all,
as someone who has not worked extensively on either of these concepts, I
still have to say that the term "genifier" strikes me as odd. My first
thought upon seeing the subject of the mail was "OK, this will be about
making something a gender, or a gene, or a knee-like thing maybe, let's
see". I was misled by terms such as "intensifier", used to make
something more intense, and certainly also, albeit more on phonological
grounds, by "gentrification", which is a widely debated topic where I live.

The attempt to blend "GEnder" and "classiFIER" is not successful in my
view, as "-fier" is not really the important formative here; "class" is.

If there is a desire for a blend, I would rather go for "Clender" or
"Clander", which would not lead to misparsings/misinterpretations as the
one I had.

As a final note, a "classifier" does something to an X, while "gender"
is a property of an X.

(1)  /ladida/ is of gender X
(2) ?/ladida/ is of classifier X
(3) ?/-dada/ is a gender
(4)  /-dada/ is a classifier

It is unclear to me whether the two concepts "gender" and "classifier"
do actually have a superordinate concept. Possibly, one has to use
"gender marker" and "classifier", or "noun class" and "gender" as
subordinate concepts to arrive at a good superordinate concept.

Best wishes
Sebastian







On 03/20/2017 04:05 PM, Martin Haspelmath 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.
> 
> 
> 
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