Abstract
This paper looks at dialect variation in Hindi ‘dialects’ Awadhi and Bhojpuri. Depending on the theory one adopts, small, micro-level differences between dialects are either taken to result from differential feature selections or from usage and input-based strategies. I instead propose that feature-level variation is tied to certain structural configurations, rather than to just discrete feature learning. Using gender variation data, I show that dialects that have a nominalizer, enable gender morphology; those which lack a nominalizer fail to display gender agreement. This correlation indicates specific structural signatures for gender morphology, while acknowledging the possibility that gender may be latent in every language, even those that do not morphologically realize gender. Language-learning children use these signatures to grasp structural schemas that are conducive to gender expression. This paper also shows how languages shift between nouns and adjectives and how gender expression via the nominalizing strategy lies at the intersection between these two categories.
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Notes
- 1.
English allows grammatical gender in restricted environments, such as the lexical items ‘she-wolf’ or when referring to inanimate objects with a feminine pronoun (e.g. ‘The captain’s ship sunk; he couldn’t save her’).
- 2.
An anonymous reviewer shares the following Hindi example, to argue that the noun is an independent cue to grammatical gender. When asked if a pillow is ‘good’ (with the adjective either corresponding to the Hindi acchaa-masc or acchii-fem), the child responds with ‘pillow koi boy hota he!!’ (Can a pillow ever be a boy?). To my understanding, there are two ways to interpret the child’s response. Either the child is referring to the pillow as an inanimate object, and the inability to identify inanimate objects with the help of biological gender morphology, or the child is already aware of the grammatical feminine value ascribed to ‘pillow’ in Hindi and is ruling out the acchaa (good-masc) possibility. Either way, it is the gender inflection on the predicate that signals the noun’s grammatical gender; the nominal form itself is neutral in this regard.
- 3.
See Cardona (1988, p. 178) for a discussion of MIA adjectives.
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Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the financial help from the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, which facilitated wide-scale surveys among the native populace speaking Awadhi, Bhojpuri and many other related languages spoken in Uttar Pradesh and its neighboring states.
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Chandra, P. (2023). On Gender Micro-Variation. In: Chandra, P. (eds) Variation in South Asian Languages. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1149-3_12
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