Ziej is a woman and het is a girl | Amsterdam University Press Journals Online
2004
Volume 73, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 0039-8691
  • E-ISSN: 2215-1214

Abstract

Abstract

In this paper, we report on a study of gender reference in Limburgian, specifically the use of the neuter subject pronoun ‘she’ (lit. ‘it’) to refer to a female referent. This pronoun is used in addition to the feminine pronoun ‘she’. We investigate the role of the referent’s social and grammatical characteristics in the variation between grammatically feminine and ‘non-feminine’ ( i.e., neuter and masculine) pronouns in two experiments. First, we test the effect of a referent’s age in a language production study, in which 41 native speakers participated. The results of this study indicate that speakers use more often to refer to younger than to older women. Second, we use an acceptability judgment task ( = 72) to assess whether the preference for non-feminine pronouns for younger women might be explained by grammatical agreement with non-feminine antecedent nouns (e.g., grammatically neuter ‘girl’). The results indicate that this is not the case: is preferred as a pronoun for younger but not older women, regardless of an antecedent noun’s grammatical gender. We conclude that the variation in pronoun gender in Limburgian is a socio-pragmatic phenomenon, and we offer suggestions for future research in this area.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/TET2021.1.PIEP
2021-09-01
2024-03-28
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/00398691/73/1/01_TET2021_1_PIEP.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.5117/TET2021.1.PIEP&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Abbott, C.(1984). Two Feminine Genders in Oneida. Anthropological Linguistics, 26(2), 125–137.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Aikhenvald, A.Y.(2016). How Gender Shapes the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Audacity Team. (2018). Audacity(R): Free Audio Editor and Recorder [Computer Program]. Version 2.2.2. Retrieved from audacityteam.org.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Audring, J.(2009). Reinventing pronoun gender. Utrecht: LOT.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Auer, P., Hinskens, F., & Kerswill, P.(2005). Dialect Change. Convergence and Divergence in European Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Backus, A.(2014). Towards a usage-based account of language change: implications of contact linguistics for linguistic theory. In R.Nicolaï (Ed.), Questioning language contact. Limits of contact, contact at its limits (pp. 91–118). Leiden/Boston: Brill.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Bakker, F.(1992). Wie me euver vrouwluuj sprik. Zeej of het, die of det. Veldeke, 67(1), 1–14.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Bakker, F. & van Hout, R.(2012). De afgrenzing tussen de noordelijke en zuidelijke dialecten in Noord-Limburg. Taal & Tongval, 64(2), 159–193.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Bakkes, P.(2002). Venloos, Roermonds en Sittards. Den Haag: SDU.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Bakkes, P., Crompvoets, H., Notten, J.G.M., & Walraven, F.(2003). Spelling 2003 voor de Limburgse dialecten. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2LESMBF.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Barbiers, L.C.J., Bennis, H.J., De Vogelaer, G., Devos, M., & van der Ham, M.H.(2006). Dynamische Syntactische Atlas van de Nederlandse Dialecten (DynaSAND). Amsterdam: Meertens Instituut. Online available via www.meertens.knaw.nl/sand/.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Barton, K.C.(2015). Elicitation Techniques: Getting People to Talk About Ideas They Don’t Usually Talk About. Theory & Research in Social Education, 43(2), 179–205.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Belemans, R.(2002). Eindrapport over de Limburg-Enquête (periode 1/8/2001–30/4/2002). Maastricht: Raod veur ‘t Limburgs en Bureau Streektaal Nederlands-Limburg.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Boersma, P. & Weenink, D.(2019). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer Program]. Version 6.0.50, retrieved April 2019, from www.praat.org/.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Braun, F. & Haig, G.(2010). When are German ‘girls’ feminine? How the semantics of age influences the grammar of gender agreement. In M.Bieswanger, H.Motschenbacher, & S.Mühleisen (Eds.), Language in its socio-cultural context: New explorations in global, medial and gendered uses (pp. 69–85). Tübingen: Narr.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Busley, S. & Fritzinger, J.(2018). Em Stefanie sei Mann—Frauen im Neutrum. In D.Nübling & S.Hirschauer (Eds.), Namen und Geschlechter: Studien zum onymischen Un/doing Gender (pp. 191–212). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Catterall, M. & Ibbotson, P.(2000). Using projective techniques in education research. British Educational Research Journal, 26, 245–256.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Chafe, W.(2002). Masculine and Feminine in the Northern Iroquoian Languages. In N.J.Enfield (Ed.), Ethnosyntax: Explorations in grammar and culture (pp. 99–109). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Christiansen, M., & Chater, N.(2016). The Now-or-Never Bottleneck: A Fundamental Constraint on Language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, p. 62. doi:10.1017/S0140525X1500031X, e62.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Corbett, G.G.(1979). The agreement hierarchy. Journal of Linguistics, 203–224.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Corbett, G.G.(1991). Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Corbett, G.G.(2015). Hybrid nouns and their complexity. In J.Fleischer, E.Rieken, & P.Widmer (Eds.), Agreement from a Diachronic Perspective (pp. 191–214). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Cornips, L.(2013). Recent developments in the Limburg dialect region. In F.Hinskens & J.Taeldeman (Eds.), Language and Space: An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation. Volume 3: Dutch (pp. 378–399). Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Cornips, L.(2014). Language contact, linguistic variability and the construction of local identities. In T.A.Åfarli & B.Maehlum (Eds.), The Sociolinguistics of Grammar (pp. 67–90). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Council of Europe. (2018). States Parties to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and their regional or minority languages. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/32KU5EN.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Croft, W.(2000). Explaining language change: An evolutionary approach. Harlow, England/New York: Longman.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. De Vogelaer, G.(2007). De Nederlandse en Friese subjectsmarkeerders: Geografie, typologie en diachronie. Gent: Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. De Vos, L.(2009). De dynamiek van hersemantisering. Taal & Tongval, 64(1), 82–110.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. De Vos, L. & De Vogelaer, G.(2011). Dutch gender and the locus of morphological regularization. Folia Linguistica, 45(2), 245–281.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Doleschal, U. & Schmid, S.(2001). Doing gender in Russian: Structure and perspective. In M.Hellinger & H.Bußmann (Eds.), Gender across Languages. The Linguistic Representation of Women and Men (Vol. 1) (pp. 253–282). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Driessen, G.(2006). Ontwikkelingen in het gebruik van streektalen en dialecten in de periode 1995–2003. Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen, 75, 103–113.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Ethnologue(2020). Limburgish. Retrieved from https://www.ethnologue.com/language/LIM
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Ferguson, C.(1964). Baby Talk in Six Languages. American Anthropologist, 66(6), 103–114.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Field, A.(2017). Discovering Statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics (4th edition). London: Sage Publications Ltd.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Hamans, C.(1989). Over taal. Amsterdam: Nijgh & Van Ditmar.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Howell, D. C.(2012). Statistical methods for psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Jacob, P.(2019). Meaning, intentionality and communication. In K.Heusinger, C.Maienborn, & P.Portner (Eds.), Semantics—Foundations, History and Methods (pp. 14–32). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Kelkar, A.R.(1964). Marathi Baby Talk. WORD, 20(1), 40–54.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Kroon, S. & Vallen, T.(2004). Dialect in Limburg. In S.Kroon & T.Vallen (Eds.), Dialect en school in Limburg (pp. 11–32). Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Labov, W.(2006). The Social Stratification of English in New York City (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Michelson, K.(2015). Gender in Oneida. In M.Hellinger & H.Motschenbacher (Eds.), Gender Across Languages (Vol. 4) (pp. 277–301). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Mithun, M.(2014). Gender and culture. In G. G.Corbett (Ed.), The Expression of Gender (pp. 131–160). Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Notten, J.G.M.(1974). De Chinezen van Nederland: Opstellen over Limburgse Dialekten en een Bibliografie. Valkenburg: Uitgeverij Het Land van Valkenburg.
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Nübling, D.(2015). Between feminine and neuter, between semantic and pragmatic gender: Hybrid names in German dialects and in Luxembourgish. In J.Fleischer, E.Rieken, & P.Widmer (Eds.), Agreement from a Diachronic Perspective (pp. 235–266). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Nübling, D., Busley, S., & Drenda, J.(2013). Dat Anna und s Eva—Neutrale Frauenrufnamen in deutschen Dialekten und im Luxemburgischen zwischen pragmatischer und semantischer Genuszuweisung. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik, 80(2), 152–196.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Martin, S.(2019). Hatt or si? Neuter and feminine gender assignment in reference to female persons in Luxembourgish, STUF – Language Typology and Universals, 72(4), 573–601. https://doi.org/10.1515/stuf-2019-0022
    [Google Scholar]
  47. van Oostendorp, M.(2012). Marie z’n fiets is kapot [Blog post]. Retrieved from www.neerlandistiek.nl/2012/02/marie-zn-fiets-is-kapot/.
    [Google Scholar]
  48. van Oostendorp, M.(2014). Phonological and phonetic databases at the Meertens Institute. In J.Durand & G.Kristoffersen (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Corpus Phonology (pp. 546–551). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. van Oostendorp, M., van Reenen, A., & van Reenen, P.(2011). Woordvormen. In N.van der Sijs (Ed.), Dialectatlas van het Nederlands (pp. 194–246). Amsterdam: Bert Bakker.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Osterhout, L. & Mobley, L.A.(1995). Event-related brain potentials elicited by failure to agree. Journal of Memory and Language, 34(6), 739–773.
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Pickering, M.J. & Ferreira, V.S.(2008). Structural priming: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin, 134(3), 427–459. doi:10.1037/0033‑2909.134.3.427.
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Piepers, J. & Redl, T.(2018). Gender-mismatching pronouns in context: The interpretation of possessive pronouns in Dutch and Limburgian. In B.Le Bruyn & J.Berns (Eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 2018 (pp. 97–110). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Prikken, P.(1994). De Taal van de Maas. Woordenboek Nederlands-Limburgs. Sittard: C&C Euregio.
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Qualtrics. (2019). Qualtrics [Software]. Provo, Utah, USA.
    [Google Scholar]
  55. R Core Team(2019). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/.
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Ramachers, S.(2018). Setting the Tone: Acquisition and processing of lexical tone in East-Limburgian dialects of Dutch. Doctoral dissertation, Radboud University, Nijmegen.
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Royen, G.(1935). Pronominale problemen in het Nederlands. Tilburg: Drukkerij van het R. K. Jongensweeshuis.
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Røyneland, U.(2009). Dialects in Norway: catching up with the rest of Europe?International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 196/197, 7–30.
    [Google Scholar]
  59. San Roque, L., Rumsey, A., Gawne, L., Spronck, S., Hoenigman, D., Carroll, A., Miller, J. C., & Evans, N.(2012). Getting the Story Straight: Language Fieldwork Using a Narrative Problem-Solving Task. Language Documentation and Conservation, 6, 135–174.
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Sardesai, M.(2005). Gender and social attitudes: Some investigations into Konkani gender. Govapuri, 4(1), 29–39.
    [Google Scholar]
  61. de Schutter, G. & Hermans, B.(2013). The Limburg dialects: Grammatical properties. In F.Hinskens & J.Taeldeman (Eds.), Language and Space: An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation. Volume 3: Dutch (pp. 356–378). Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Schütze, C. T. & Sprouse, J.(2014). Judgment data. In R.J.Podesva & D.Sharma (Eds.), Research Methods in Linguistics (pp. 27–50). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Subbarao, K. V. & Lalitha Murthy, B.(2011). Lexical anaphors and pronouns in Telugu. In B. C.Lust, K.Wali, J. W.Gair, & K. V.Subbarao (Eds.), Lexical Anaphors and Pronouns in Selected South Asian Languages: A Principled Typology (pp. 217–273). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Textor, M.(2019). (Frege on) Sense and reference. In K.Heusinger, C.Maienborn, & P.Portner (Eds.), Semantics—Foundations, History and Methods (pp. 33–61). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
    [Google Scholar]
  65. Weijnen, A.(1966). Nederlandse dialectkunde. Assen: Van Gorcum.
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Weijnen, A.(1971). Schets van de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse syntaxis. Assen: Van Gorcum.
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Weiss, D.(1993). How Many Sexes Are There? Reflections on Natural and Grammatical Gender in Contemporary Polish and Russian. In R.Laskowski & G.Hentschel (Eds.), Studies in Polish morphology and syntax. Synchronic and diachronic problems (pp. 71–105). Munich: Kubon & Sagner.
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.5117/TET2021.1.PIEP
Loading
/content/journals/10.5117/TET2021.1.PIEP
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): female reference; gender; Limburgian dialect; pronoun; variation
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error