The location of gender features in the syntax

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to critically review the results of linguistic research on the syntactic location of gender features. It has become relatively clear that gender features do not project their own phrase “GenP” and they are not located on the Num(ber) head that hosts number features. Instead, the field mostly agrees that gender features are located on the nominal—either on N or, in approaches that decompose lexical categories, on the nominalizing head n. Additional gender features have been proposed higher in the structure in order to capture certain processes that impose their own gender (e.g., diminutives are always feminine in the Semitic language Amharic) and to capture patterns of hybrid agreement (e.g., Russian nouns that are grammatically masculine but may trigger feminine agreement when referring to a woman).

Singular <i>they</i> and the syntactic representation of gender in English

“…To the extent that some speakers disprefer he or she as bound variables, it might be possible to locate gender on English pronouns on D. This would eliminate the need for a projection ΦP in (13), which treads quite close to a dedicated Gender Phrase. Such a projection has been proposed by authors such as Picallo (1991), but is argued against by Kramer (2015;2016), among others. arbitrary grammatical gender features, a cultural or pragmatic assumptions that all persons are either male or female would eliminate the previously available category of animate neuters, leaving genuinely epicene antecedents to instead be realized by an elsewhere form.…”

“…15 To the extent that some speakers disprefer he or she as bound variables, it might be possible to locate gender on English pronouns on D. This would eliminate the need for a projection ФP in (13), which treads quite close to a dedicated Gender Phrase. Such a projection has been proposed by authors such as Picallo (1991), but is argued against by Kramer (2015Kramer ( , 2016, among others.…”

“…Bound variable This is higher than the position typically assumed for grammatical or semantic gender, most commonly associated with the root itself or with n 0 . See Kramer (2016) for an overview of arguments in favour of a low position for grammatical gender, across a number of languages. To the extent that some speakers disprefer he or she as bound variables, it might be possible to locate gender on English pronouns on D. This would eliminate the need for a projection ΦP in (13), which treads quite close to a dedicated Gender Phrase.…”

Formação e estilização ortográfica de nomes sociais de pessoas transgêneros

“…Consoante Camara Jr. (2011a), sua flexão de gênero se dá a partir da forma não marcada "Mário". Assim, tem-se a opção por marcar o gênero a partir do apagamento da forma [-FEM], mantendo-se a forma [+FEM], conforme proposta de Kramer (2016), na renomeação de "João Maria>Maria" e a transformação de um prenome duplo masculino para um prenome simples.…”

Gender exponence and apparent polarity in a class of Omani Mehri plurals

“…Consequently, the relationship between the two rightmost objects in (13) is unambiguously one of domination of the root by categorial head n. By contrast, there is considerable discussion as to the nature and location of the representation of Gender (Gen) with respect to both the categorial head (n) and the representation of Number (Num). Some have proposed that Gen is part of NumP (Ritter 1991;; others maintain that Gen is part of nP 12 (Alexiadou 2004;Lowenstamm 2008;Kramer 2015;2016;Fathi & Lowenstamm 2016); finally, it has been proposed that Gen is independent of both nP and NumP and occupies an intermediate position such that it unambiguously dominates the former and is unambiguously dominated by the latter (Picallo 1991;2008;Bernstein 1993).…”