Loss of grammatical gender and language contact

Igartua, Iván

doi:10.1075/dia.17004.iga

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…While the experiment was not designed to model a specific case of natural language simplification, it is nevertheless useful to note that broadly similar patterns of reduction or loss of overspecified features have been claimed to follow language contact involving high numbers of L2 learners [ 77 ]. For example, many cases of overspecified features reconstructed for Proto-Germanic that are retained in most modern Germanic languages, e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While it is clear that repeating information can be beneficial in noisy channels, and while there is evidence that agreement has certain functions in language processing [ 79 , 80 ], our point is that it is not necessary for languages to have a special device to perform these functions, they can operate equally well without it. Importantly, imperfect learning caused by language contact has been claimed to be a key factor in disappearance of agreement [ 77 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Imperfect language learning reduces morphological overspecification: Experimental evidence

Berdičevskis

Semenuks

2022

PLoS ONE

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It is often claimed that languages with more non-native speakers tend to become morphologically simpler, presumably because non-native speakers learn the language imperfectly. A growing number of studies support this claim, but there is a dearth of experiments that evaluate it and the suggested explanatory mechanisms. We performed a large-scale experiment which directly tested whether imperfect language learning simplifies linguistic structure and whether this effect is amplified by iterated learning. Members of 45 transmission chains, each consisting of 10 one-person generations, learned artificial mini-languages and transmitted them to the next generation. Manipulating the learning time showed that when transmission chains contained generations of imperfect learners, the decrease in morphological complexity was more pronounced than when the chains did not contain imperfect learners. The decrease was partial (complexity did not get fully eliminated) and gradual (caused by the accumulation of small simplifying changes). Simplification primarily affected double agent-marking, which is more redundant, arguably more difficult to learn and less salient than other features. The results were not affected by the number of the imperfect-learner generations in the transmission chains. Thus, we provide strong experimental evidence in support of the hypothesis that iterated imperfect learning leads to language simplification.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imperfect language learning reduces morphological overspecification: Experimental evidence

Berdičevskis

Semenuks

2022

PLoS ONE

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“…However, it seems that not all contact leads to gender loss. In the context of Oromo dialects, it is only the intense and durable contact that leads to gender loss, not just adult second language learning which was argued to be the case in Igartua (2019), Dahl (2004) and Trudgill (2013). The findings further imply that loss of gender assignment precedes the loss of gender agreement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We show that, in Oromo, gender loss is initiated primarily by language contact, and that the stability in a gender assignment system is determined by gender stability in the adjacent or nearby languages. Following Igartua (2019) and Trudgill (2013), we also discuss major factors that have probably resulted in gender loss in Oromo. Based on Igartua (2019) and Clamons (1992), we further contend that changes in gender assignment and agreement favor simplicity.…”

Section: Gender Variation and The Typology Of Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender variation across the Oromo dialects: A corpus‐based study*

Feleke

Lohndal

2023

Studia Linguistica

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This study aims to (1) demonstrate the position of the Oromo gender system in Corbett's (1991) typology of gender; (2) illustrate major syntactic gender variation across the Oromo dialects; (3) identify factors that contributed to the gender variation, and (4) illustrate the morphosyntax of the Oromo gender system. The data obtained from the Oromo Speech Corpus shows a high degree of lexical and syntactic variation between the Western‐Northern dialects on the one hand, and the Eastern‐Southern dialects on the other hand. The Western and Northern dialects have shifted from the historically Cushitic phonology‐based gender assignment pattern to the semantic‐based assignment pattern. This shift has resulted in a widespread neutralization of feminine gender markers. The contact between Oromo and the neighboring non‐Cushitic languages contributed to these changes. The study also argues that Kramer's (2015) morphosyntactic approach can be extended to the analysis of Oromo gender system.

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“…Similarly, it has been proposed that gender systems, another feature more typical of low-exotericity languages (11), tend to reduce in languages that undergo contact with other languages, especially those without gender, i.e. when the societies speaking these languages become more exoteric (14), or even disappear, as in Ossetic and Cappadocian Greek, where the loss of gender has also been linked to L2 learning and contact (15). Apart from adult L2 speakers failing to faithfully learn a foreign language, the simplification (loss or reduction of phonologically fused marking) can result from L1 speakers consciously or unconsciously accommodating their speech to the needs of the outsiders by reducing grammatical markers that pose acquisition difficulties (5).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Societies of strangers do not speak grammatically simpler languages (original submission)

Щербакова¹,

Michaelis²,

Haynie³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Many recent proposals claim that languages adapt to their environments. The Linguistic Niche hypothesis claims that languages with numerous native speakers and substantial proportions of non-native speakers (societies of strangers) will tend to lose grammatical distinctions. In contrast, languages in small, isolated communities should maintain or expand their range of grammatical markers. Here, we test such claims using a new global dataset of grammatical structures - Grambank. We model the impact of the number of native speakers, the proportion of non-native speakers, the number of linguistic neighbors, and the status of a language on grammatical complexity while controlling for spatial and phylogenetic autocorrelation. We deconstruct "grammatical complexity" into two separate dimensions: (i) how much morphology a language has ("fusion"), and (ii) the amount of information obligatorily encoded in the grammar ("informativity"). We find several instances of weak positive associations but no inverse correlations between grammatical complexity and sociodemographic factors. Our findings cast doubt on the widespread assumption that grammatical complexity is shaped by the sociolinguistic environment.

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Loss of grammatical gender and language contact

Cited by 8 publications

References 81 publications

Imperfect language learning reduces morphological overspecification: Experimental evidence

Imperfect language learning reduces morphological overspecification: Experimental evidence

Gender variation across the Oromo dialects: A corpus‐based study*

Societies of strangers do not speak grammatically simpler languages (original submission)

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