[Lingtyp] genifiers (gender markers/classifiers)

Tue Mar 21 23:25:56 UTC 2017

Martin/All -

As others have already pointed out, there are two related issues here, 
one terminological and the other typological. I consider the 
terminological issue pretty trivial - I certainly agree that we have 
less terminology than we need for the number of concepts that we want to 
talk about in a more-or-less contrastive way, and while I'm willing to 
bet that even those of us who share this view probably blanched (at 
least initially) at the sight of the term "genifier", at the end of the 
day it doesn't matter - "grammaticalization" has more suffixes than it 
needs, and if you unpack them all they don't actually add up to what we 
use the term to mean, but the world keeps turning regardless.

But I'd take issue with the motivation for a categorical merger in the 
first place (which is what I take the introduction of a superordinate 
label to amount to - if that's wrong, then I've misunderstood 
something). It seems to me that most of the literature on classifiers 
focuses on the semantic dimension of classification, probably because 
this is what stands out as exotic from a European perspective - and, 
indeed, the label "classifier" itself suggests this. And it's the 
semantic dimension that is mostly being focused on when an alignment 
between gender systems and classifier systems is proposed - even, and 
especially, when superordinate labels like "noun classification" are 
proposed. But this is only part of the story. The *function* of 
classifiers - and here, I *only* mean the "numeral classifiers" of 
Greater Mainland Southeast Asia - is not classification, but referential 
specification. They function, that is, to individuate entities as 
instances of types. That is why the most frequently-used classifier by 
far in Mandarin Chinese, for example, is (almost) semantically empty, 
and cliticizes to demonstratives and the numeral 'one' in most mentions. 
Other languages take matters further, by deputizing the generic 
classifier itself as a de facto indefinite article - consider, for 
example, Nuoso Yi (data from Liu and Gu 2011 DOI: 10.1075/tsl.96.11liu 
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/tsl.96.11liu> - apologies if the glosses 
don't align properly).

i33ti34  gu33    ʑo33       si44        la33 .
coat       CL        catch       take        come
‘Bring a coat (to me).’

Hence the frequent observation that languages with classifiers tend to 
lack articles (though it's true that they don't always).

Given these facts, it seems that there's an at least equal argument in 
favor of merging classifiers with other referential markers, and in 
particular articles, so: clarticles? classicles? artifiers? Hmmm...

It seems to me that what we're really talking about here is the same 
thing that we usually talk about, which is that there are no 
cross-linguistically watertight categories, but we want to do typology 
anyway, so what do we do? We can select a semantic parameter (a 
"comparative concept") in terms of which categories may be similar 
across languages, but they will differ in other respects. If we focus on 
those other respects, we can end up with a different typology. It may be 
that the real difficulty here is that our traditional category-labels, 
and the categories they are designed to capture, are multi-dimensional.

Mark

On 22/03/2017 8:34 AM, Sebastian Nordhoff wrote:
>> And the term “gen-ifier” is completely parallel to “class-ifier” – it’s
>> a marker that puts a noun in a genus.
> if "genifier" is used to put a noun in a *genus*, it is out as a marker
> for the superordinate concept encompassing both noun class and gender.
> Best
> Sebastian
>
>> (Actually, since English distinguishes between “gender” and “genus”, one
>> might even introduce “genus” as a new feature term, a cover term for
>> gender and classifierhood. That would certainly be found more acceptable
>> to neophobics than "clender".)
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> On 21.03.17 20:38, Sebastian Nordhoff wrote:
>>> 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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