31.1646, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Typology: Aikhenvald, Mihas (2019)

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Subject: 31.1646, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; Typology: Aikhenvald, Mihas (2019)

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Date: Mon, 18 May 2020 10:40:54
From: David Robertson [ddr11 at columbia.edu]
Subject: Genders and Classifiers

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36591977


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-4521.html

EDITOR: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
EDITOR: Elena I. Mihas
TITLE: Genders and Classifiers
SUBTITLE: A Cross-Linguistic Typology
SERIES TITLE: Explorations in Linguistic Typology
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2019

REVIEWER: David Douglas Robertson, University of Victoria

SUMMARY

(xxi + 310 pp.) This ninth and latest in Oxford's very fine Explorations in
Linguistic Typology series both summarizes and offers case studies in the ways
in which grammars are known to develop and use overt categorization of nouns.
Because classifiers in particular may be unfamiliar to many linguists, I will
herein emphasize the factual contents of the book over my evaluation thereof. 

Its Preface (viii-ix) broadly previews the volume's typological findings and
describes the 2017 workshop from which its chapters emerged. Note is made that
“[t]he analysis is uniformly cast in terms of basic linguistic theory” (BLT),
which, far from a simplification for novices, is “the cumulative typological
framework which provides the foundation for sound empirically-based
descriptive and analytic works.” (See RMW Dixon's 3-volume opus (2010-2014)
for a BLT summary of what linguists know.) Notes on the Contributors, with
contact information, occupy pages x-xiii. Abbreviations (xiv-xxi) complete the
introductory matter.

Chapter 1, “Noun Categorization Devices: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective” by
Aikhenvald (1-29), is that editor's summary of research on the topic. Gender
systems are always rooted in biological gender, and typically apply without
exception to all of a language's nouns. Marking of gender can be overt (i.e.
on the noun) or covert (on some agreeing constituent(s)). In many languages,
it can interact with a classifier (CL) morpheme system. Six types of these are
distinguished by their scope, the argument categorized, and its semantics: (1)
Numeral CLs sort quantified nominals by salient inherent qualities of those
entities. (2) Noun CL systems explicitly subdivide nominals per se into
multiple semantic classes. (3) Possessive CLs similarly categorize Possessee
arguments. (4) Verbal CLs are bound morphemes within the verb stem referring
to a trait of the Object or Subject (hardly ever Agent) argument thereof. (5)
Locative CLs, a rare type, index properties of objects that are referred to by
a language's location markers. (6) Deictic CLs are even rarer, being mandatory
references by a demonstrative to the positional orientation of an argument. CL
systems typically do not apply to all nouns in a language, and more than one
of the above kinds can coexist. Some languages allow several CLs on one noun,
giving a more specific meaning to the head. “Multiple CL” languages deploy the
same classifier in more than one syntactic context, a spectactular example on
page 17 being a Tariana sentence of five words, each bearing the CL suffix for
'house'. Noun categorization devices bear a significant functional load,
distinguishing meanings of a single stem, conveying speaker attitudes towards
it, tracking its use in discourse, and so on. Noun classification devices can
historically originate in bound nouns, verbs, or pronouns, and often are
etymologically transparent, indicating their recent vintage; their presence is
typically an areal phenomenon, implicating contact as a frequent means of
their introduction. 

Chapter 2, by editor Mihas, examines “Genders and Classifiers in Kampa
(Arawak) Languages of Peru” (30-66). Gender marking is obligatory on various
words agreeing with nouns (i.e. in the third person), as well as on some noun
heads; animacy too is overtly distinguished in a subset of these languages.
Cultural assumptions influence formal gender assignment, with myths explaining
why e.g. stars are of masculine but landscape features of feminine gender. A
multiple-CL categorizes nominals primarily by shape, but some reference shape
or physical arrangement. CL use is however not necessarily frequent, occurring
roughly once per 5 to 9 sentences, depending on the individual language,
genre, etc. A primary function of CLs is for referent introduction and
tracking, but they also allow for affective reference, both negative and
positive, to fellow humans through unexpected CL choices. 

In Chapter 3, Pilar M. Valenzuela investigates “Classifiers in Shiwilu
(Kawapanan): Exploring Typologically Salient Properties” by (67-102). In this
language, there is no grammatical gender, and its “multiple'' CLs are not
obligatory. There is a significant degree of homophony, with three pairs of
identical CLs and one CL identical to a freestanding noun. Statistics show
that CL use is rather infrequent, calculated at once per roughly 28 spoken
words. The most frequent CL function is to derive new vocabulary, contrary to
previous typological generalizations that discourse tracking is central. Other
functions include a “concord-like” and an adjective-like usage. More than once
CL can occur per word, the final one functioning as head; a single CL can
reduplicate, connoting descriptor root plurality. Animate-referring CLs on
verbs tend to be interpreted as Agents, inanimates as Objects. Two CLs in a
verb are interpreted respectively as Subject and Object. 

Editor Aikhenvald presents Chapter 4 “A View from the North: Genders and
Classifiers in Arawak Languages of North-West Amazonia” (103-143). Here she
illustrates pertinent traits of these languages with respect to their tendency
toward an unusual occurrence of gender and CL systems. Both are reconstructed
to Proto-Arawak; yet a good deal of diversity occurs, with gender less or more
independent of CL use in each language. Four sets of these languages are
distinguished, depending on whether and to what extent they use CLs, which
seem to be a recent historical development, grammaticalizing from largely
distinct selections of nouns from language to language. Major functions of
these CLs are (again) disambiguation of related forms, coining new forms,
individuating nominals, and anaphoric reference. Appendices to the chapter
explain the genetic subgroupings of these languages and tabulate the CL
systems used in various of them. 

Chapter 5 introduces another language family and another region with
“Possessive Classifiers in Zamucoan” of the Northern Chaco, by Luca Ciucci and
Pier Marco Bertinetto (144-175). CLs in these languages are unique in
simultaneously expressing gender as well as a Zamucoan peculiarity, an
obligatory morphosyntactic category called 'form' (predicative usage versus
indefinite and definite argumental function; perhaps approximately a continuum
of topicality). As seen of other languages in this volume, CLs here appear to
be a young system. An important function they serve is to express possession
of nouns that are ordinarily uninflectable for possession. 

Shifting back to northwest Amazonia, with Chapter 6 Katarzyna I. Wojtylak
describes “The Elusive Verbal Classifiers in 'Witoto'” by (176-196). This
(noun-)genderless language uses a large (≥110-member) multiple-CL system
taxonomizing nouns by physical properties, natural gender, and abstractness,
as well as providing generic CLs and innovating new ones as needed. Most are
monosyllabic; disyllabic ones tend to be more specific in meaning, a seeming
sign of their origin as two CLs on one noun. The primary function of CLs is
generating new noun stems. A notable feature is the non-productive occurrence
of CLs in verbs, indexing an argument that then need not be explicitly stated.

Chapter 7 examines one of the rarer CL types, with Cristina Messineo and Paola
Cúneo discussing “Multifunctionality of Deictic Classifiers in the Toba
Language (Guaycuruan)” (197-221). This Argentinian language's CL system has
three each of strictly deictic (proximal, distal, unseen) and of positional
(standing, lying, sitting) members, all six identical in morphosyntactic
behavior, thus justifying their consideration as a single “deictic CL” class.
Agreeing in number and gender with their noun heads, and apparently obligatory
with them, these CLs also participate in generating third-person and
demonstrative pronouns, introduce relative clauses, and connect multiverb
predicates (e.g. 3.want CL:proximate 3.eat = 'wanted to eat'). The deictic CLs
categorize nouns both in intuitive ways (for example, trees take the
'standing' CL, beds the 'lying', and pots the 'sitting' CL), and in
conventional metaphorical extensions (plural for instance can be conveyed by
the 'lying' CL, as though several entities were lined up in a row). As seen in
other languages, CLs are amenable to further creative uses, such as
distinguishing the mammal 'fox' from the fish called by the same noun stem,
and even conveying an affective stance, as when 'dog' takes the 'standing' CL
which is prototypically associated with humans (resulting in a joke or insult:
'You are a dog!'). Temporal reference is connoted by the strictly-deictic CLs,
so that 'proximate' = 'present', 'distal' = 'recent past', and 'unseen' =
'remote past' or 'future'. Discourse structure too interacts with CL choice;
as a rule 'distal' encodes Agents (a more topical function) but  'proximal'
Objects/Subjects (which are more focused). The authors additionally show that
CL choice varies by, and indicates, textual genre. 

With Chapter 8, “Classifiers in Hmong” (222-248), Nathan M. White reviews the
literature on the topic and presents four new empirical observations. First,
there is a previously unrecognized CL subtype in the language, the locative
classifier (viz. Aikhenvald's Chapter 1). Second, the Hmong CLs constitute an
open class, one that readily recruits new members even from foreign languages.
Third, certain syntactic phenomena are now more clearly analyzed; these
include what has previously been seen as “verbal classifiers” but which are
here argued to be nominals, and an “apportioning” construction more or less
equivalent to English 'each'. Lastly, White shows that Hmong is another
language in which CL choice helps structure discourse in terms of
definiteness, specificity, genericity, and so forth. 

Another East Asian language is the topic of Chapter 9, “Numeral Classifiers in
Japanese” by Nerida Jarkey and Hiroko Komatsu (249-281), examining the
standard variety. The authors find that “counters” accompanying Japanese
numeral words pattern into numeral classifiers, conventionalized measures, and
quantifiers, categories that are not fully discreet but instead occupy a
“quality-quantity continuum”. Numeral CLs are obligatory except when counting
with large numbers, which are foreign (Chinese) in origin. While the class is
large (100 or more members by previous counts), a mere five numeral CLs total
82% of the tokens in one study sample cited, and average speakers' CL
inventories appear to be shrinking through time. Living beings tend to be
referred to either by 'human' or 'nonhuman animal' CLs, while inanimate
nominals normally are classified by physical dimensions or cultural uses.
Etymological sources of the majority of CLs not known to trace to ancient
Japanese include native nouns and some verbs, as well as quite a few Chinese
loans. Among the functions of the CLs is expression of specificity and
indefiniteness, as well as signaling stylistic choice. As seen in other
languages above, a given noun stem can take various CLs, economically
connoting such descriptive information as size, shape, and even robot status,
as well as speaker attitude (as when the CL -hiki 'small animal' is used to
count 'people' in a disdainful way). 

Chapter 10 concludes the case studies with another Asian language, in “Numeral
Classifiers in Munya, a Tibeto-Burman Language” by Junwei Bai (282-298). As in
Japanese, there is no nominal gender, so that Munya CLs are the only
noun-classification device available. They are bound roots, of either sortal
or mensural semantics. There are two interchangeable generic sortal CLs as
well as ones for human/nonhuman living status, shape, unit of time, and so on.
Mensural CLs subdivide into those for containers, groups, length, weight, and
kind. Again we find this is a language using its CLs not only for 
quantification and classification, but also for discourse and pragmatic
functions including specificity, definiteness, and anaphora. In addition,
certain numeral + CL expressions can be used adverbially, sometimes with the
sense of a verbal situation occurring 'N times'. 

The book closes with Indexes of Authors (299-302), Languages, Language
Families, and Linguistic Areas (303-305), and Subjects (306-310).

EVALUATION

Like the other books in this series, this one is a valuable communication of
what is now known in terms of the linguistic typology of a given phenomenon.
Field workers as well as more theoretically oriented typologists will find its
presentation of the possibilities of noun categorization in a single
convenient volume to be enlightening. The combination of a sort of checklist
of CL parameters to be probed by researchers (particularly Aikhenvald's
Chapter 1) with illustrative cases from diverse regions amounts to an
effective course in what, for linguists working in some parts of the world,
will be a relatively exotic morphosyntactic device, thus remedying a gap in
many colleagues' training. Certain chapters in this book are exceptionally
concise, clear, and digestible. I want to single out Chapters 7 on Toba, 9 on
Japanese, and 10 on Munya for their achievements in this regard; each would
make a fine weekly reading in, say, a university seminar on classifiers. 

Because it is an anthology of many authors presenting specialized expertise,
the diversity of symbolic devices used in the chapters has to have been a
challenge for the editors and their assistants to bring into a semblance of
uniformity. Their solution, the thorough table compiling Abbreviations in the
start of the book, is wise and useful. Almost inevitably, some entries in it
are opaque (such as AT 'postposition “dine” in Murui'); some seem superfluous
(EP 'epenthetic' in Kampa and Shiwilu, and LK 'linker' in 'Witoto', look
purely phonological and might have been better left unsegmented); and certain
identical abbreviations bear divergent glosses (like M 'masculine' and 'middle
pronominal marker'), an issue that only grueling communication with the
contributors and self-sacrificing editorial effort could forestall. A more
substantial request for any future edition would be the inclusion of symbols
in this same list, as nowhere is an explanation made of what is meant by “~”
(seemingly, variable ordering of constituents, p. 224) and “.” (evidently,
conjoinment of multiple syllables in a morph, ibid., but also denoting parsing
within morphologically complex stems, p. 257).

Thanks to the fact that most textbooks and research are published by speakers
of Western European languages, gender systems are probably fairly familiar to
linguists worldwide; colleagues may be a good deal less aware that classifier
systems, too, are of fairly wide occurrence. While one appreciates this
volume's focus on two fascinatingly rich regions of CL use, it would be
rewarding to see the editors discuss where else these devices occur. For
example, they are not uncommon in North America, where the Na-Dene languages
employ verbal classifiers in profusion (Krauss 1968), and Salish languages are
well known for their ramified numeral classifier systems (Gerdts and Hinkson
2004). Beyond areal considerations, sign languages also are routinely
discussed in terms of classifier use (viz. Engberg-Pedersen 2010), and a
number of pidgins/creoles feature CLs as well (Maurer et al. 2013); both are
typically omitted from typological surveys, and both likely would have
contributed further to the editors' generalizations. 

Naturally the approaches and terminology vary from chapter to chapter, mostly
without much consequence, but sometimes an author's insight implies deeper
issues that could profitably be pursued. One instance is the dichotomy claimed
in Chapter 2 between “non-possessable” and possessed nouns. On its surface
this seems like a novel and promising area for typological research. For Kampa
Arawakan, an admirably precise list of the former class encompasses “entities
from the domains of natural elements, supernatural...forces, and astral
entities...also...proper names, vocative/address kinship terms, and some
orientation and geomorphic terms” (p. 34). Upon reflection, however, this
seems like an enumeration of the sorts of nominals that are pragmatically
unlikely to be possessed in typical speech in any human language. The notion
of “non-possessable”, then, may deserve further research in its own right as
the counterpart to the great amount of typological work on kinds of possessa;
it might provide a useful further point along the continuum usually thought of
in terms of alienables vs. inalienables. 

Various merely implicit or seemingly offhand observations in this volume would
seem to merit more discussion and further crosslinguistic research. In this
regard it is probably worth pointing out the uncommented-on phonological
variation in CL shape that we see in some of the Kampa (e.g. p. 39) and
Shiwilu data. One wonders whether certain functional uses of CLs might be more
prone to phenomena such as phonological reduction and to influence from
neighboring morphemes' segments. Another occurrence sporadically noted among
the chapters is the use of “two consecutive number words accompanied by one
numeral classifier, with an approximate reading” (p. 12); the chapter on Munya
uniquely specifies that this pattern can extend to numerals as high as six (p.
290), and it would be interesting to learn its extent in a worldwide sample. 

In summary, this volume is highly recommended as the most current summation of
what has been learned by researchers into noun-classification systems in
recent years. It is an excellent tool for any scholar seeking to solidify
their grasp of the grammatical possibilities of languages and for those aiming
to document languages in as full and intercomparable a fashion as possible.

REFERENCES

Dixon, RMW. 2010-2014. Basic Linguistic Theory (Vols. 1-3). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth. 2010. Factors that form classifier signs. Pp.
252-283 in Brentari, Diane (ed.), Sign Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 

Gerdts, Donna and Merdedes Q. Hinkson. 2004. Salish numeral classifiers: A
lexical means to a grammatical end. STUF – Language Typology and Universals
57(2-3):247-279. 

Krauss, Michael. 1968. Noun-classification systems in Athapaskan, Eyak,
Tlingit and Haida verbs. International Journal of American Linguistics
34(3):194-203.

Maurer, Philippe and the APiCS Consortium. 2013. Sortal numeral classifiers.
In: Michaelis, Susanne Maria & Maurer, Philippe & Haspelmath, Martin & Huber,
Magnus (eds.), The atlas of pidgin and creole language structures. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. Online at
https://apics-online.info/parameters/36.chapter.html, accessed February 20,
2020.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

David Douglas Robertson, PhD, works on Pacific Northwest languages and
linguistic contact history, in particular the pidgin-creole Chinuk Wawa
(Chinook Jargon) and Tsamosan (Soutwest Washington State) Salish languages. He
specializes in the repatriation of indigenous intangible cultural property
from archival language materials.





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