How Recent Contact Erased Ancient Traces in the Gender Systems of the Oromo Dialects

Clamons, Robbin

doi:10.3765/bls.v21i1.1402

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Negative connotations may cause some Limburgian speakers to avoid the non-feminine pronouns; eventually, this could spread across enough speakers to raise the impression that the language may be losing the use of these pronouns (cf. Aikhenvald 2003;Thomason 2001 for general accounts of cultural causes of contact-induced change; for specific accounts of contact-induced change in gender systems, see e.g., Clamons 1995;Gumperz and Wilson 1971). In the next subsection, we discuss the sociolinguistic implications of connotational changes.…”

Section: Sociopragmatic Gender In Limburgian-dutch Language Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘It’ Is Not for Everyone: Variation in Speakers’ Evaluation of Sociopragmatic Pronouns in Limburgian

Piepers,

Backus,

Swanenberg

2023

Languages

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper explores the different ways in which speakers of Limburgian think and feel about sociopragmatic pronouns in their dialect, in which women can traditionally be referred to with both ziej ‘she’ and het ‘she’ (lit. ‘it’). Previous research revealed variation between speakers regarding the use of het, which appears to be associated with differences in interpretation and evaluation. This study investigates this further by analyzing how individual speakers evaluate non-feminine pronouns for women. Our data show that many speakers have a relatively high level of awareness, discussing four key themes: (i) how female reference in Limburgian differs from that of Dutch; (ii) the appropriateness of using the pronouns for certain referents and/or in certain social situations; (iii) the various connotations the pronouns may have; and (iv) how they navigate between-speaker differences regarding pronoun evaluation in daily life. Importantly, this high level of awareness is not present in all speakers. These results indicate that the use or non-use of the pronoun het for female referents may be conditioned by cognitive automaticity for some speakers, and by a conscious, emotionally charged consideration about its desirability for others. Our findings, therefore, suggest the importance of integrating cognition and sociality in linguistic theorizing.

show abstract

Section: Sociopragmatic Gender In Limburgian-dutch Language Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘It’ Is Not for Everyone: Variation in Speakers’ Evaluation of Sociopragmatic Pronouns in Limburgian

Piepers,

Backus,

Swanenberg

2023

Languages

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Language contact is one avenue for the genesis of such a system. In saying that we have "virtually no observation of how [gender systems] arise in the first place", Janse et al were likely referring more directly to language-internal gender development; however, the role of contact as a vehicle for evolution in gender systems is a necessary component of a more thorough understanding of gender generally (see also Trudgill, 1999 andClamons, 1995).…”

Section: 3mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Agreement in Correntino Spanish

Pinta

2022

J. Lang. Contact

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article provides qualitative and quantitative analyses of variable gender agreement in Correntino Spanish, the variety of Spanish spoken by both Spanish-Guarani bilinguals and Correntino Spanish monolinguals in the province of Corrientes, Argentina. Drawing on data collected from fieldwork in the province, it will be shown that this variation is conditioned by distance effects and modifier class. Synchronic gender agreement variation in Correntino Spanish is attributed to diachronic source language agentivity effects (Van Coetsem, 1988) given the lack of gender inflection in Guarani. This phenomenon would be unsurprising as a contact effect if found synchronically only in bilinguals; however, its occurrence in monolinguals sets it aside as a rare instance of variable gender agreement in monolingual Spanish. This loosening of gender agreement mirrors the development of gender in Argentine Guarani (Cerno, 2010), and these phenomena taken together shed light on the malleability of gender systems under situations of intense language contact. Together they provide a valuable example of mutual contact-induced changes in gender systems.

show abstract

“…sebox-r table-MASC 'high table' (3b) sebox-u table-FEM 'squat table' (Sumbuk 1999: 115) In the Harar dialect of Oromo, an East Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia and Kenya, gender can vary to indicate the speaker's emotions (Clamons 1995). For example, in (2b), the speaker's negative attitude towards a dog is shown by changing the usually feminine gender of the noun 'dog' to masculine.…”

Section: (1a)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Two syntactic positions of grammatical gender

Steriopolo

2018

Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The paper proposes some formal and functional criteria for distinguishing between two different syntactic positions of grammatical gender: determiner gender (D-gender) and nominal gender (n-gender). Focusing on D-gender and how it differs from n-gender, this work supports previous analyses of gender as a heterogeneous category that occupies different positions in the syntactic tree. Data are presented from 27 languages, many of which are either critically endangered or already extinct.1

show abstract

How Recent Contact Erased Ancient Traces in the Gender Systems of the Oromo Dialects

Abstract: Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Historical Issues in Sociolinguistics/Social Issues in Historical Linguistics (1995)

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

‘It’ Is Not for Everyone: Variation in Speakers’ Evaluation of Sociopragmatic Pronouns in Limburgian

‘It’ Is Not for Everyone: Variation in Speakers’ Evaluation of Sociopragmatic Pronouns in Limburgian

Gender Agreement in Correntino Spanish

Two syntactic positions of grammatical gender

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About