The locus of parametric variation in Bantu gender and nominal derivation

Fuchs, Zuzanna; Wal, J. van der

doi:10.1075/lv.20007.fuc

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…From this analysis, Kîîtharaka can be characterized as having a "crossed" gender system according to the terminology of Corbett et al (1991), with variable convergence at classes 6 and 10. Class 6 has elsewhere in the Bantu literature been argued to function as a default plural (see e.g., Bosire 2006;Ström 2012;van der Wal & Fuchs 2019;Fuchs & van der Wal 2022). However, outside of regular class 5 nouns, many of the other nouns that pluralise in this class have a collective interpretation in the plural.…”

Section: Gender Agreement Class Traditional Class Prefixes Number Pairsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some researchers treat these prefixes as theoretically identical to other prefixes, i.e., they bear noun class features (see e.g., Mufwene 1980;Myers 1987;Carstens 1991;Bresnan & Mchombo 1995;Maho 2001). Others attribute the multifunctionality to different syntactic positions that the two sets of prefixes occupy (see e.g., Déchaine et al 2014;Fuchs & van der Wal 2022). We will adopt a similar approach here and leave the issue for future research.…”

Section: Gender Agreement Class Traditional Class Prefixes Number Pairsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Verbs were translated as infinitives as this was the only way to ensure noun class 15 was represented. 37 words were not translated as they denoted things that lacked a native equivalent.6 The locative feature was not coded for since this class has diachronically diminished in Kîîtharaka and is made up of only two nouns (one each for singular and plural) (see alsoFuchs et al 2018; van der Wal & Fuchs 2019).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Semantic and morphophonological productivity of Kîîtharaka gender system

Kanampiu,

Martin,

Culbertson

2024

Preprint

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In nominal classification systems, both form (i.e., morphology, phonology or both) and meaning often interact to determine the class or gender of the noun. In Bantu languages in particular, linguistic analysis has often put the emphasis on meaning, both inherent and evaluative (e.g., diminutive). However, recent quantitative studies have argued that both meaning and morphophonology — the ubiquitous nominal prefixes — serve as cues to class in Bantu, with their robustness and specific aspects potentially differing across individual languages. Here, we conducted an experimental study aimed at establishing whether speakers of Kîîtharaka (Bantu, E54) are sensitive to both semantics and morphophonology when classify- ing novel Kîîtharaka nouns. The results of two wug-task-style experiments show that speakers are sensitive to two inherent features Human and Fruit, and evaluative features like Augmentative, Pejorative and Diminutive. On the other hand, they are robustly sensitive to all morphophonological features tested when classifying novel nouns. Our results suggest that se- mantic features are generally less productive than morphophonology in the Kîîtharaka nominal classification system.

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Section: Gender Agreement Class Traditional Class Prefixes Number Pairsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gender Agreement Class Traditional Class Prefixes Number Pairsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Semantic and morphophonological productivity of Kîîtharaka gender system

Kanampiu,

Martin,

Culbertson

2024

Preprint

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Processing of grammatical gender agreement morphemes in Polish: evidence from the Visual World Paradigm

Fuchs

2023

Morphology

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This paper presents a psycholinguistic study of the processing of grammatical gender agreement morphemes in Polish, which has three gender categories (masculine, feminine, neuter), as well as what language-internal factors impact this processing. Results from an eye-tracking study using the Visual World Paradigm show that, during real-time language comprehension, adult monolingual speakers of Polish use cues from gender agreement on a prenominal adjective to anticipate the upcoming noun. An exploration of language-internal factors affecting this anticipatory processing finds this effect in all three genders, suggesting that encountering the relevant nominative-case agreement morpheme during language comprehension leads to automatic activation of a gender node in the mental lexicon, consistent with the literature on other languages with grammatical gender. These results hold true for the neuter agreement morpheme, despite the fact that this morpheme also instantiates default gender agreement in the language and is syncretic with the nominative plural agreement morpheme in all three genders. Further investigation finds that, while agreement morphemes for each gender prompt anticipatory processing, the reliability of a masculine agreement morpheme as a cue to gender is reduced in the presence of a neuter distractor, and vice versa. This raises questions regarding phonological proximity between the realized suffix and the suffix that would cue the distractor, with implications for the acquisition and processing of gender agreement morphology in Polish.

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An exoskeletal approach to grammatical gender

Kramer

2024

LAB

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The locus of parametric variation in Bantu gender and nominal derivation

Cited by 4 publications

References 50 publications

Semantic and morphophonological productivity of Kîîtharaka gender system

Semantic and morphophonological productivity of Kîîtharaka gender system

Processing of grammatical gender agreement morphemes in Polish: evidence from the Visual World Paradigm

An exoskeletal approach to grammatical gender

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