On Male and Female Speech and More: Categorical Gender Indexicality in Indigenous South American Languages

Abstract

Indexing the gender of the speaker or the addressee within any type of sentence is often considered as sociolinguistic variation rather than as a gender-exclusive rule. This paper presents a survey of categorical (rather than statistical) gender indexicality in grammar with the greatest number of languages to date. It also offers a data-informed typology of categorical gender indexicality based on 41 indigenous South American languages, aimed at encouraging and facilitating research on genderlects. Examples are classified according to which speech act participants have their gender indexed and in which area of the grammar (lexicon, discourse markers, phonology, morphology). The main findings are first, that categorical gender indexicality in the grammar is more frequent than thought, and second, that the weight of gender indexicality within a language is correlated to the domain: it is limited in the lexicon, more present with discourse markers, and pervasive at the phonological and morphological levels.

Diversifying multilingualism: Languages and lects in Amazonia

“…While a number of scholars have challenged Haas' conception of genderlects, Fleming (2012) argues that at least some of these lects must indeed be understood to function categorically. Rose's (2015) ("ludling") for the coati speech prefix.…”

“…In contrast to "statistical" or more performative forms of gendered speech (i.e. tendencies for women and men to use particular forms), which are globally widespread, the detailed investigations of this phenomenon by Fleming (2012) and Rose (2015) suggest that "highly presupposing, categorical gender indexicality" may be particularly prevalent in indigenous America, particularly with respect to marking that is realized systemically across a range of loci (Fleming, 2012, p. 297; see also Haas, 1944;Silverstein, 1985). Rose's (2015) survey indicates that some form of gender indexicality (at varying levels of systematicity) is attested in 10% of over 400 languages surveyed in lowland South America, spanning 14 language families.…”

“…Characteristics of Amerindian genderlects include a strong tendency to reflect the speaker's gender, although that of the addressee may also sometimes be involved (Fleming, 2012;Haas, 1944;Rose, 2015). Their categorical nature is evidenced by use in such contexts as quoted speech, with speakers generally mastering both variants -much as speakers in multilingual regions like the Vaupés may quote another speaker in his or her own language (Epps, 2018, p. 161).…”

On languages on islands

“…Haurholm-Larsen 2016; Quesada 2017), but it died out on the islands in the early twentieth century. Garifuna has pronouns and a few lexemes indexical of the gender of the speaker -a rare phenomenon worldwide (Rose 2015). In addition, a special type of French developed, with many Amerindian loans, which was called Le langage des Îles (Jansen 2012;Bollée 2015).…”

Nota sobre o sistema de parentesco em Proto-Tupí-Guaraní

“…Estes símbolos aludem ao sexo do referente que indexa a relação de parentesco, o ego, e não ao sexo da pessoa que emprega o termo em sua fala. Veja tambémRose (2015), para uma discussão mais ampla sobre a indexação do sexo em línguas sul-americanas.…”