[Lingtyp] nominal classification (gender and classifiers)

[Johanna NICHOLS]

I'd be inclined to call that a kind of derivation (or conversion), highly
productive for some languages and lexically restricted for others.  Much
like what produces Spanish manzana (F) 'apple (fruit)' vs. manzano (M)
'apple (tree)', except more widespread in the lexicon.

Johanna

On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 9:39 AM, <dlpayne at uoregon.edu> wrote:

> Another language of essentially the “referentially-based” type that David
> Gil describes is Maa (Maasai):
>
> Payne, Doris L. 1998.   Maasai gender in typological perspective.  *Studies
> in African Linguistics* 27.159-175.
>
>
>    - Doris Payne
>
>
> *From:* David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
> *Sent:* ‎Thursday‎, ‎March‎ ‎30‎, ‎2017 ‎9‎:‎32‎ ‎AM
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>
> Dear all,
>
> Misha writes:
> > I am unaware of any language that has a reference-based
> > (overwhelmingly non-rigid) noun categorization device used for what is
> > an obvious typological instance of agreement. If you are aware of such
> > example, it would be interesting to know more about it. On the other
> > hand, Walter's message indicates that there are consistently rigid
> > systems that are not used for agreement - his Thai example.
> As a possible example of a "language that has a reference-based
> (overwhelmingly non-rigid) noun categorization device used for what is
> an obvious typological instance of agreement", I offer Roon, a language
> of the South Halmahera West New Guinea subgroup of Austronesian, spoken
> off the northern coast of western New Guinea. (I believe the facts in
> closely related Biak, for which there are two recent reference grammars,
> are similar in the relevant respects.)
>
> Roon has two genders, animate (encompassing humans, animals and plants)
> and inanimate. (Gender is only marked in 3rd person, leading me to
> wonder whether it can be collapsed with person into a single
> higher-level feature, though Grev Corbett has tried to talk me out of
> that!)  Agreement is straightforward: verbs agree with their subjects,
> and most nominal attributes agree with their head nouns, with respect to
> person, number and also gender (animate/inanimate). The agreement
> markers are prefixal, sometimes involving metathesis with the first
> segment of the root of the host agreement target.
>
> What's less clear is whether this is a *reference-based*
> noun-categorization device.  Against its characterization as such are a
> *very* small set of lexical items, including for example the words for
> 'coffee' and 'money' that are grammatically inanimate even though they
> are semantically inanimate.  On the other hand, many, perhaps most
> words, are flexible, and can belong to either class (animate or
> inanimate) with largely predictable semantic effects. Most commonly, the
> animate form refers to the animal/plant as a whole, while the inanimate
> form refers to either part of the animal/plant, or a substance or
> foodstuff made out of it.  For example, one word means 'pig' when
> animate and 'pork' when inanimate, similarly another word means 'coconut
> tree' when animate and 'coconut (fruit)' when inanimate.  (I must admit
> I haven't checked what happens with human referents, but given that they
> were still cooking the occasional missionary in the mid-1800s, I suspect
> I know the answer.)
>
> So does this count as "reference-based"?
>
> David
>
> --
> David Gil
>
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>
> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834 <+49%203641%20686834>
> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816 <+62%20812-8116-2816>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20170330/c11a030f/attachment.htm>