[Lingtyp] nominal classification (gender and classifiers)

Fri Mar 31 09:16:39 UTC 2017

Dear colleagues,

In Movima (isolate, South-West Amazon), referential elements (i.e.  
determiners/articles and pronouns) differentiate between human male,  
human female, non-human, and plural referents. Inanimate ("neuter")  
referential elements, when used with a human noun, indicate  
non-specific or derogatory reference. So for sex-neutral human nouns  
like *dichiye* 'child', we get:

m. kus dichiye 'the/a boy'
f. kinos dichiye 'the/a girl'
pl. kis dichiye '(the) children'
n. kos dichiye 'some child (nonspecific); that child (derogatory)'

With nouns that imply sex, the alternatives are of course limited -  
e.g. *itilakwa* 'man' cannot be combined with a 'fem.' referential  
element. Still, they can be combined with a neutral element (if  
referring to an animal or with the above-mentioned effects for humans:  
kos itilakwa = 'the male (animal); some man; that man - derogatory'),  
which shows that the choice of the referential element does not depend  
on the noun, but on the referent.

So this is not agreement, and not even gender (although I labelled it  
gender in Haude 2006). I am wondering now whether this system  
shouldn't, in fact, rather be considered a case of classification ...

Best,
Katharina

Haude, Katharina. 2006. A Grammar of Movima. Doctoral diss., Radboud  
University Nijmegen. http://webdoc.ubn.ru.nl/mono/h/haude_k/gramofmo.pdf

Quoting Johanna NICHOLS <johanna at berkeley.edu>:

> 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
>>
>>

Quoting Johanna NICHOLS <johanna at berkeley.edu>:

> 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
>>
>>