See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330779597
Olga Steriopolo Gender in Ninilchik Russian: A morphosyntactic account
Preprint in Folia Linguistica · February 2019
CITATIONS
READS
0
96
1 author:
Olga Steriopolo
Centre for General Linguistics
22 PUBLICATIONS 130 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Teacher identity in Greece and Europe View project
A syntactic typology of gender View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Olga Steriopolo on 01 February 2019.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.
Olga Steriopolo
Gender in Ninilchik Russian: A morphosyntactic account
Abstract: This work presents a first morphosyntactic account of the category gender in
Ninilchik Russian, a highly-endangered dialect of Russian, within the framework of Distributed
Morphology. Furthermore, it compares gender in Ninilchik Russian with that of Contemporary
Standard Russian. I show that, unlike Standard Russian, Ninilchik nouns have no grammatical
gender features on the nominal head. Masculine is the default grammatical gender. Human
nouns, however, can be assigned feminine gender through the context, which is determined by
the natural gender (sex) of the referent. The investigation is multi-disciplinary. The anticipated
results will be of interest to theoretical linguists, language typologists, language-area
specialists, and language educators. Since Ninilchik Russian is on the verge of extinction, the
findings will also be relevant to the fields of education and endangered language
documentation, maintenance, and revitalization.
Keywords: Ninilchik Russian, gender features, morphosyntax, mixed gender agreement,
Distributed Morphology
Running title: Gender in Ninilchik Russian
Author:
Olga Steriopolo
Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS)
Schützenstr.18
D-10117 Berlin
Germany
steriopolo@leibniz-zas.de
1 Introduction
Ninilchik Russian (NR) is an endangered dialect of the Russian language spoken in the village
of Ninilchik on the west coast of the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. Bergelson and Kibrik (2010)
describe in detail the history of NR, which dates back to the second half of the 18th century and
1
is connected to a commercial trading company in Alaska, the Russian-American Company
(RAC). Many Russian traders and officers of the RAC married local women of EskimoAleutian, Athapascan, and other Native American origin. As a result, an ethnically mixed group
of people emerged. By the mid 19th century, several RAC retirees could not return to Russia
due to tax legislation and in 1847, a settlement, later named Ninilchik, was founded for them.
At first, there were only five families living in Ninilchik. However, by the end of the 19th
century, more than 80 people called the village their home. In 1867, the territory of Alaska was
sold to the United States and in the decades that followed, Ninilchik residents were relatively
isolated. In 1910, an English-language school was opened in Ninilchik and the use of Russian
was strongly discouraged. As a result, children ceased to acquire Russian as their first
language. At present, only very few, elderly speakers of NR remain. Though their primary
language is English, they still recall how NR was spoken when they were children.1
NR is a unique dialect of the Russian language, particularly with respect to inflectional
morphology. Kantarovich (2012) describes differences in the grammatical categories of case
and gender in NR in comparison with Contemporary Standard Russian (henceforth SR).
Kantarovich (2012: 38) observes that case as well as gender are “not a stable category in
Ninilchik Russian”. The Nominal case form is often (but not always) used in other
morphological cases in NR. Kantarovich (2012: 40) suggests that historically “Ninilchik
Russian had a fairly developed case system that has since undergone attrition”. For this reason,
I investigate Ninilchik data only in the Nominative case.
The main focus of this research is an analysis of the gender category in NR and its
differences with SR. Daly (1985, 1986) was the first to observe substantial differences between
the gender systems in NR and SR. First, the neuter gender agreement is non-existent in NR.
Forms that are consistently neuter in SR generally trigger masculine (moj akoška ‘my.MASC
window’) gender agreement in NR. Second, forms that are consistently feminine in SR can
trigger either masculine (durn-óy bába ‘foolish-MASC woman’) or feminine (durn-áya bába
‘foolish-FEM woman’) gender agreement in NR. However, the similarity is that forms that are
consistently masculine in SR tend to also trigger masculine agreement in NR (chórn-ay
m’idwét’ ‘black-MASC bear’). Thus, the following two research questions arise: First, has NR
1
To the best of my knowledge the speakers of Ninilchik do not have regular access to Contemporary Standard
Russian.
2
developed a unique grammatical gender system, distinct from SR? And second, how can we
account theoretically for the differences between the grammatical gender systems in SR and
NR?
All data for the current research come from a single source – a recently published
dictionary of NR (Bergelson et al. 2017). Part of a larger research project started by Kibrik and
Bergelson in 1997, it is the only existing NR dictionary. The dictionary entries do not indicate
specifically the grammatical gender of nouns. In order to determine grammatical gender, I have
analyzed all phrases and sentences in the dictionary that show grammatical gender agreement
in the nominative singular form (NOM.SG).
In Section 2, I present generalizations from the data based on the Ninilchik dictionary
(Bergelson et al. 2017), first discussing gender marking on personal pronouns (Section 2.1) and
then on nouns (Section 2.2). In Section 3, I first present my theoretical assumptions (Section
3.1), propose a morphosyntactic analysis of the data (Section 3.2), and put this analysis in a
cross-linguistic perspective (Section 3.3). Finally, Section 4 concludes.
2 Data
2.1 Personal pronouns in Ninilchik Russian
Similarly to SR, singular personal pronouns in NR that refer to male referents trigger masculine
grammatical agreement and those that refer to female referents trigger feminine agreement.
Masculine adjectives in NR carry the endings -ay, -oy and -iy in the NOM.SG; and feminine
adjectives carry the ending -aya in the NOM.SG (Bergelson and Kibrik 2010; Kantarovich
2012).
(1) a. Ya ustá-l.
I
b. Ya ustá-l-a.
get.tired-PST.MASC
I
‘I (male) got tired.’
get.tired-PST-FEM
‘I (female) got tired.’
c. Ya harósh-aya, ya n’i chud’ú.
I
good-FEM,
I not go.crazy
‘I (female) am good, I am not raising hell.’
d. T’i pe-l?
e. T’i pé-l-a?
you sing-PST.MASC
you sing-PST-FEM
3
‘Did you (male) sing?’
‘Did you (female) sing?’
f. Atkúy t’i pr’ish-ól?
g. Atkúy t’i pr’ish-l-á?
where you come-PST.MASC
where you come-PST-FEM
‘Where did you (male) come from?’
‘Where did you (female) come from?’
h. On w’isók-ay.
i. Aná w’isók-aya.
he tall-MASC
she tall-FEM
‘He is tall.’
‘She is tall.’
j. On úm’ir.
k. Aná um’ir-l-á.
he die. PST.MASC
she die-PST-FEM
‘He died.’
‘She died.’
The neuter personal pronoun ono ‘it’ used in SR is entirely absent in NR and thus not found in
the dictionary. Instead, a substantial number of examples include the demonstrative pronoun
eta ‘it/this’.
(2) a. N’imnóshka rán’shi éta búla.
a.bit
earlier this was
‘It was a little bit earlier.’
b. Ya dúmayu ya étu pat’irá-l.
I think
I this lose-PST.MASC
‘I think I lost it.’
c. Ya étu waz’mú.
I this take.FUT
‘I will take it.’
d. Ya hachú étu wz’at.
I want
this to.take
‘I want to take it.’
2.2 Nouns in Ninilchik Russian
There are significant differences between NR and SR grammatical gender both in human
animate and inanimate nouns. First, we will consider human nouns.
4
2.2.1 Human nouns
In SR, human sex-differentiable nouns that denote males are usually masculine, and those that
denote females are feminine. In NR, this seems only to be the case for male nouns, as in (3)
below.
at’éts m’in’é mnóga pamagá-l.
(3) a. Moy
my.MASC
father me
lots
helped-PST.MASC
‘My father helped me a lot.
b. Iwón-ay
s’in mál’in’k-uy.
his-MASC son small-MASC
‘His son is small.’
c. bahát-ay
rich-MASC
muzhík
man
‘rich man’
d. T’i hud-óy
mal’chíshka.
you bad-MASC boy
‘You are a bad boy.’
When it comes to female nouns, two options are available and used productively by speakers:
either (i) with feminine gender agreement, as in (4a, c, e, g) (similar to SR), or (ii) with
masculine gender agreement, as in (4b, d, f) (ungrammatical in SR).
(4) a. may-á star’úha
b. moy
star’úha
my-FEM old.woman
my.MASC
‘my old woman’
‘my old woman’
c. may-á s’istrá
d. moy
my-FEM sister
my.MASC
‘my sister’
‘my sister’
e. may-á zhiná
f. iwón-ay
my-FEM wife
his-MASC
5
old.woman
s’istrá
sister
zhiná
wife
‘my wife’
‘his wife’
g. Iwón-ay
dóchka
his-MASC
daughter
tam.
there
‘His daughter is there.’
There are also two interesting cases of mixed gender agreement in NR, as in (5a, b), which are
ungrammatical in SR.
(5) a. Iwón-ay doch
mán’in’k-aya.
b. Násh-iy dóchka
harósh-aya.
his-MASC daughter small-FEM
our-MASC daughter good-FEM
‘His daughter is small.’
‘Our daughter is good.’
In (5), the possessive pronouns agree in masculine gender with the female nouns doch and
dochka ‘daughter’, while the predicative adjectives agree in feminine gender.
It is worth noting that in NR, the optional feminine or masculine agreement with a
female noun is used productively mostly with possessive pronouns. There is only one case of a
masculine possessive adjective Bózh-iy ‘God’s-MASC’ used with the female noun mat’ir
‘mother’, as in (6a) and one optional case of a masculine attributive adjective durn-óy ‘foolish’
used with the female noun baba ‘woman’, as in (6b). This noun can also be used with feminine
agreement, as in (6c).2
mát’ir
(6) a. Bózh-iy
God’s-MASC
mother
‘God’s mother’
b. durn-óy
bába
c. durn-áya
foolish-MASC woman
foolish-FEM
‘foolish woman’
‘foolish woman’
bába
woman
With respect to predicative agreement (verbal and adjectival), feminine gender
agreement is used productively with female nouns. Some examples of verbal agreement are
2
This is the only example of masculine attributive agreement with a female noun found in the dictionary.
6
given in (7a-c) below; the examples of predicative adjectival agreement were shown earlier (see
mixed gender agreement in (5)).
(7) a. Moy-á
mat’
m’in’á paslá-l-a
my-FEM mother me
send-PST-FEM
w kur’átn’ik.
in chicken.house
‘My mother sent me to the chicken house.’
b. Bábushka m’in’é nakarm’í-l-a.
grandma me
feed-PST-FEM
‘Grandma fed me.’
c. Máma t’ibé zwá-l-a.
mama you
call-PST-FEM
‘Mama called for you.’
2.2.2 Non-human animate and inanimate nouns
A vast majority of masculine nouns that belong to the declension class I in SR (with Ø ending
in the NOM.SG), are also masculine in NR (21 different nouns in the NOM.SG have been
found in the dictionary), as shown in (8). There is only one noun ‒ ras ‘time’, listed in
Appendix A ‒ that seems to trigger feminine gender agreement in NR.
(8) a. bél-ay
król’ik
white-MASC
rabbit
‘white rabbit’
b. chórn-ay
black-MASC
m’idwét’
bear
‘black bear’
(See also: kár-ay m’id’wét’, ‘brown-MASC bear/grizzly bear’)
c. Wásh-iy
your-MASC
dom
bal’sh-óy.
house big-MASC
‘Your house is big.’
(See also: Dom bul krépk-ay, ‘House was.MASC strong-MASC .’)
d. Iwón-ay
pál’its
atrub’ít-ay.
7
his-MASC
finger
chopped.off-MASC
‘His finger is chopped off.’
sn’ek
e. mókr-ay
wet-MASC
snow
‘wet snow’
(See also: sn’izh-óy shár’ik, ‘snow-MASC ball’)
Feminine nouns that belong to the declension class III in SR (most nouns that end in a
soft consonant in the NOM.SG), trigger masculine gender agreement in NR (three different
nouns have been found in the dictionary ‒ bol’ ‘pain’, noch ‘night’, loshit’ ‘horse’). The
examples are given in (9). No exceptions were found here.
(9) a. Kak-óy
u
what-MASC at
was
bol’?
you
pain
‘What pain do you feel ?/What sickness do you suffer from?’
(See also: s’íl’n-ay bol’, ‘strong-MASC pain’)
b. Spakóyn-ay noch!
quiet-MASC night
‘Have a good night!’
c. Pradáy m’in’é tw-oy
sell
me
your-MASC
lóshit’!
horse
‘Sell me your horse!’
The vast majority of feminine nouns that belong to the declension class II in SR (with
an -a ending in the NOM.SG) trigger masculine gender agreement in NR (46 different nouns in
the NOM.SG have been found in the dictionary). Some examples are given in (10). There are
also 10 nouns that seem to trigger feminine agreement (given in Appendix B ‒ the majority of
these nouns can also optionally trigger masculine agreement).
(10) a. Sabáka s’ird’ít-ay.
dog
angry-MASC
8
‘The dog is mean.’
(See also: Sabáka m’in’é prógna-l, ‘Dog me chased.PST.MASC.’)
b. krásn-ay r’íba
red-MASC fish
‘red salmon’
(See also: swézh-ay pr’isól’n-ay r’íba, ‘fresh-MASC salted-MASC fish’)
c. d’ík-ay
kóshka
wild-MASC
cat
‘wild cat/lynx’
d. krásn-ay l’is’ítsa
red-MASC fox
‘red fox’
e. U t’ibé bal’sh-óy galawá a
at you big-MASC head
u n’iwó mál’ink-uy.
and at him
small-MASC
‘You have a big head and he has a small one.’
f. U n’iwó pálachn-ay nagá, d’ir’iw’án-ay.
at him
peg-MASC leg, wooden-MASC
‘He has a peg leg, a wooden one.’)
g. Rabóta sam
job
n’i pr’id’ót;
iwó
náda
iskát.
itself.MASC not come.FUT; him
need
to.look.for
‘A job won’t arrive by itself; it is necessary to look for it.’
h. Pl’itá swétl-ay.
stove clear-MASC
‘The stove is shiny.’
(See also: Pl’itá pragarél, ‘Stove went.out.MASC.’)
A vast majority of nouns that are neuter in SR trigger masculine gender agreement in
NR (15 different nouns in the NOM.SG have been found in the dictionary), as shown in (11).
There are also four nouns that seem to trigger feminine agreement (given in Appendix C – one
of them, akóshka ‘window’, is also attested with masculine agreement). No data triggering
9
neuter gender agreement have been found in the dictionary (see Daly 1986; Bergelson and
Kibrik 2010; and Kantarovich 2012 on the loss of neuter gender in NR).
(11) a. Moy
akóshka
my.MASC window
tsíst-ay.
clean-MASC
‘My window is clean.’
(See also: Akóshka slamá-l-sa, ‘Window break-PST-REFL.MASC.’
b. Balsh-óy spas’íba
shto zashól.
big-MASC thank.you that came
‘Thanks a lot for coming.’
c. Chésn-ay
slówa.
honest-MASC word
‘I bet.’
d. dazhiw-óy
rain-MASC
pal’tó
coat
‘raincoat’
(See also: A gd’éta tw-oy pal’tó?, ‘And where your-MASC coat?’)
e. Myása krépk-ay.
meat
hard-MASC
‘The meat is hard.’
(See also: s’ir-óy myása, ‘raw-MASC meat’)
f. iwón-ay
his-MASC
mésta
place
‘his place/house’
(See also: Éta mésta bal’sh-óy, ‘This place big-MASC.’)
g. sukawát-ay d’ér’iwa
knotty-MASC wood
‘knotty wood/tree’
(See also: suh-óy d’ér’iwa, ‘dry-MASC wood’)
h. Katór’-iy
what-MASC
wrém’ya?
time
10
‘What time is it? (not used by some speakers)’
2.3 Summary
As in SR, male personal pronouns in NR consistently trigger masculine gender agreement (both
attributive and predicative), and female personal pronouns consistently trigger feminine
agreement. However, unlike in SR, there is no neuter personal pronoun ono ‘it-NEUT’ in NR.
Instead, the demonstrative pronoun eta ‘it’ is used. These findings are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1: A comparison of personal pronouns in NR and SR
NR
SR
1SG


2SG


3SG.MASC/FEM


3SG.NEUT
*

A vast majority of non-human animate and inanimate nouns in NR trigger masculine gender
agreement (both attributive and predicative). However, there are 15 different nouns – all listed
in Appendices A, B, C – that seem to trigger feminine agreement. They are treated here as
exceptional for the following two reasons: (i) the small number of them found in the dictionary;
(ii) most of them can also optionally trigger masculine agreement in NR. In NR, no nouns have
been found triggering neuter gender agreement, unlike in SR, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: A comparison of non-human animate and inanimate nouns in NR and SR
NR
SR
Masculine


Feminine
*

(15 exceptions)
Neuter
*
11

Human sex-differentiable nouns in NR present a very interesting case when they denote
females. They can productively trigger two different kinds of gender agreement with possessive
pronouns: (i) feminine, as in (12a); and (ii) masculine, as in (12b). In addition, one example of
a possessive and one example of attributive adjectives with both kinds of gender agreement
have been found. In contrast, in SR, such sex-differentiable nouns can only trigger feminine
gender agreement, as in (12c); while masculine gender agreement is strongly ungrammatical, as
in (12d).
(12) NR:
a. may-á star’úha;
b. moy
star’úha
my-FEM old.woman
my.MASC old.woman
‘my old woman’
‘my old woman’
SR:
c. may-á star’úha
d. *moy
star’úha
my-FEM old.woman
my.MASC old.woman
‘my old woman’
‘my old woman’
In addition, in NR, female sex-differentiable nouns can trigger mixed gender agreement, which
is ungrammatical in SR. Thus, in the NR sentence (13a) below, the possessive pronoun násh-iy
‘our-MASC’ agrees in masculine gender, and the predicative adjective harósh-aya ‘good-FEM’
agrees in feminine gender with the female noun dóchka ‘daughter’. This sentence is
grammatical in NR, but it is strongly ungrammatical in SR, as shown in (13b). In contrast, in
SR, only data with feminine gender agreement are grammatical, as in (13c). It is important to
point out that in SR, although mixed gender agreement is attested with nouns that denote
female professions (Corbett 1991; Pereltsvaig 2007; Matushansky 2013; Pesetsky 2013;
Steriopolo 2018, among others), it is strongly ungrammatical with female sex-differentiable
nouns, like, for example, kinship terms.
(13) NR:
a. Násh-iy
our-MASC
dóchka
harósh-aya.
daughter
good-FEM
12
‘Our daughter is good.’
SR:
b. *Násh
our-MASC
dóchka
harósh-aya.
daughter
good-FEM
‘Our daughter is good.’
c.
Násh-a
dóchka
harósh-aya.
our-FEM
daughter
good-FEM
‘Our daughter is good.’
These findings are summarized in Table 3.
Table 3: A comparison of human sex-differentiable nouns (denoting females) in NR and SR
NR
SR
Masculine

*
Feminine


Mixed gender (MASC and FEM)

*
3
Analysis
3.1 Theoretical assumptions
Distributed Morphology (DM) (e.g. Halle and Marantz 1993; Halle 1997; Marantz 1997) adopts
the basic organization of a Principles-and-Parameters grammar (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2001),
adding the level of Morphology as the interface between syntax and phonology, as shown in
(14).
13
The central claim of DM is that there is no division between syntax and morphology. The
relationships between morphemes are identical in the structure to the relationships between
words. In DM, there is no centralized Lexicon. The Lexicon (in the traditional sense) is
‘distributed’ across the grammar in various lists (underlined in (14) above)): (i) the ‘Formative
List’ (bundles of features), (ii) the ‘Exponent List’ (vocabulary items), and (iii) the
‘Encyclopedia’ (a list of idioms). The Formative List is the input for syntax and includes bundles
of features that lack morphophonology in syntax (the ‘phonology-free syntax’). Once a syntactic
derivation is complete, it is sent to PF and LF. At PF, vocabulary insertion takes place and the
syntactic feature bundles are given morphophonological content (in other words, they are
‘exponed’ via ‘Vocabulary Insertion’). The Encyclopedia contains a list of idioms in language or
‘Encyclopedia entries’ that relate vocabulary items to meanings.
DM differentiates between word formation from √roots3 and word formation from
syntactic categories (Josefsson 1995, 1997; Marantz 2001; Embick and Marantz 2006; Embick
and Noyer 2007; Matushansky and Marantz 2013). √Roots are category neutral, but can never
appear ‘bare’: they must be categorized by combining with a category-defining head (a process
called ‘Lexical Decomposition’), such as the ‘little’ n, a, or v, in order to form nouns, adjectives,
or verbs, respectively, as diagrammed in (15a-c).
3
The notation is from Pesetsky (1995).
14
In the DM framework, roots are deprived of any features, including gender (Borer 2005;
Acquaviva 2009; Embick and Noyer 2007; Embick 2012; Kramer 2015, among others). Kramer
(2015) proposes that gender features are located on n and come in two different types:
‘interpretable’, for natural gender, and ‘uninterpretable’, for arbitrary gender, as shown in (16ae). In (16c), the ‘plain’ n has no gender feature and can result in morphological default.
(16)
POSSIBLE INVENTORY OF FEATURES
a.
n i [+FEM]
Female natural gender
b.
n i [-FEM]
Male natural gender
c.
n
No natural gender (or it is irrelevant/unknown)
d.
n u [-FEM]
Male arbitrary gender
e.
n u [+FEM]
Female arbitrary gender
(Kramer 2015: 50, 170)
According to Kramer (2015), interpretable features are legible at LF and can change the
interpretation of a structure (e.g., they can insert a denotation, as in Zamparelli 2008: 170). In
contrast, uninterpretable features are illegible at LF and they do not affect interpretation.
Kramer (2015:52) suggests that there are no inherent male or female meanings on roots like
√mother or √father. Licensing a root in a particular nominal context is what allows it to be
interpreted as male or female. For example, in (17), it is the interpretable feature i[+FEM] that
triggers female interpretation of the noun ‘mother’, and not the meaning of the root.
(17)
SEMANTIC LICENSING CONDITIONS:
‘mother’ (modified from Kramer 2015: 51)
[ni[+FEM] [√mother]] = ‘female parent’
Thus, a structure for a kinship term like ‘mother’ contains a category-neutral root which is
licensed in the nominal context of ni[+FEM], as diagrammed in (18).
15
3.2 Proposal for a morphosyntactic analysis
I propose that NR contains no gender features on the nominal head n (interpretable or
uninterpretable), which corresponds to a plain n in Kramer’s (2015) system, as shown in (16c)
above. All nouns in NR, including sex-differentiable kinship terms, are masculine by
morphological default. Thus, an inventory of features on the nominal head n in NR consists only
of a plain n, as in (19).
(19)
INVENTORY OF FEATURES IN NR
n
I propose the following structure for NR nouns (including kinship nouns like ‘daughter’) in (20).
Evidence for this proposal is drawn from the vast majority of nouns in NR (including those that
denote females) that can trigger masculine gender agreement, as shown in (21a-e).
(21) a. Iwón-ay
his-MASC
dóchka
tam.
daughter there
‘His daughter is there.’
16
mát’ir
b. Bózh-iy
God’s-MASC mother
‘God’s mother’
c. násh-iy babushka
our-MASC grandma
‘our grandma’
d. moy
sabáka
my.MASC
dog
‘my dog’
e. Moy
akóshka
my.MASC window
tsíst-ay.
clean-MASC
‘My window is clean.’
The absence of gender features on n does not lead to ungrammaticality in the data. Instead, it
results in masculine default. According to Preminger (2014:240–241), the AGREE operation is
obligatory in syntax, modeled in terms of an obligatory operation FIND(f), as in (22).
(22) FIND(f)
“Given an unvalued feature f on a head H, look for an XP bearing a valued instance of f
and assign that value to H.” (Preminger 2014:96)
However, agreement can fail if a target with the requisite featural content is absent from the
derivation, as in (23).
(23) Failed agreement: A descriptive characterization
“An utterance that is grammatical despite failing to adhere to what is an otherwise
obligatory pattern of agreement in the language in question, and for which there is no
grammatical variant where agreement surfaces normally, is an instance of failed
agreement.” (Preminger 2014: 12)
17
Thus, according to Preminger (2014), failures of agreement do not result in ungrammaticality;
they result only in the lack of valuation of the relevant features on the probe. For example, in
structure (24) below, when the probe D with an unvalued gender feature [GEN_] encounters a
goal n that lacks a gender feature, the operation FIND(f) will fail and there is no valuation of the
gender feature on D. Here, agreement is impossible because of the absence of an appropriate
target, but grammaticality is still possible without agreement, which results in masculine
default.4
The current proposal can account for a vast majority of data in NR with default masculine
agreement (including female-denoting nouns). However, the following question remains: How
can we account for nouns that trigger feminine grammatical agreement in NR? A number of
researchers argue that interpretable gender features can be inserted later in the derivation, thus,
they are located higher than n. For example, Pesetsky (2013) proposes that in Russian,
‘feminization’ can occur through a phonologically null morpheme Ж (zh) (named after the first
letter of the Russian word zhenshhina ‘woman’). The feminizing head can merge almost
anywhere in the DP above a certain threshold, in which ‘low’ adjectives are introduced (those
adjectives that have non-intersective or idiomatic interpretation). The structure from Pesetsky
(2013: 40) is given in (25) below. It shows that once the morpheme Ж merges, the noun triggers
feminine agreement from that point forward.
4
Another theoretical possibility would be to assume that in NR, there is no gender-probe on n and thus, there is no
need for Preminger’s (2014) failed-agree approach.
18
According to Lyutikova (2013), the feminizing head must be introduced not only above the
threshold, as indicated in (10), but also above subsective adjectives and cardinal and collective
numerals, suggesting that this head corresponds to the referential D-layer (see also Gerasimova
[2017] on an experimental study of this phenomenon with the same conclusion). In alignment
with Pereltsvaig (2007), Steriopolo and Wiltschko (2010), Lyutikova (2013), Steriopolo (2018),
and Kučerová (2018), I assume that semantically interpretable gender features can be inserted in
the D-layer.
Consider, for example, a recent proposal by Kučerová (2018). Kučerová argues that the φfeature valuation, including gender, can be determined from the context and that contextually
determined gender is assigned on D, as structured in (26a-c) below. In (26a), the probe D with an
19
unvalued gender feature [GEN_] encounters a goal n that has no gender feature. In (26b), D
cannot be valued, so the valuation occurs from the context through the feature [PERSON] on D.
It has been repeatedly argued in the literature that the feature [PERSON] is located on the
category D (the category of personal pronouns) (see Ritter 1995; Carstens 2000; Baker 2008;
Danon 2011; Landau 2016). In (26c), the gender feature on n receives valuation via the matching
link with D. According to Kučerová (2018: 819), gender features on n and D are part of the same
Agree chain (the ‘Matching Link Condition’). Thus, they cannot undergo valuation
independently of each other.
20
Kučerová (2018: 827) proposes that contextual gender valuation is dependent on the feature
[PERSON] (or [+/-PARTICIPANT] in Nevins’ [2007] terms), which is a feature that is licensed by
the syntax-semantics interface and is associated with a referential index as part of the labeling of
the DP.
Matushansky (2013) as well as Sauerland (2004) propose that valuation of contextdependent gender features is driven by the semantic component as a presupposition associated
with an assignment index. A semantic denotation of masculine/feminine genders is given in (27).
A feminine feature associated with the index i will denote a female if the referent is female, and
masculine feature with the index i will denote a male if the referent is male.
(27)
SEMANTIC DENOTATION OF MASC/FEM (modified
a.
[[GEN:fi]]ʷᵍ = λxe. g(i) is a female in w: x
b.
[[GEN:mi]]ʷᵍ = λxe. g(i) is a male in w: x
from Kučerová 2018: 27)
However, Kučerová’s proposal that gender features on n and D are part of the same Agree chain
does not seem to be able to account for DP-internal gender mismatches in SR. The matching link
condition implies that DP-internal adnominals should have the same grammatical gender.
However, Russian data show that it is not the case. For example, in (28a) and (28b) below, the
leftmost adjective shows feminine agreement, while the one closest to the noun shows masculine
agreement.
(28) SR: a. Moj-a
nov-aja
klassn-yj
rukovoditel’ vse prichita-l-a…
my-FEM new-FEM class-MASC supervisor ITER complain-PST-FEM
‘My new (female) class supervisor continually complained (that)…’
(Pesetsky 2013: 38)
b. ?U menja ochen’ interesn-aja
at me
very
nov-yj
vrach.
interesting-FEM new-MASC doctor
‘I have a very interesting new (female) doctor.’
(Pesetsky 2013: 38)
21
For this reason, I propose to modify part of Kučerová’s idea concerning the matching link
between n and D, in order to account for DP-internal mixed agreement in SR (see also Steriopolo
2017).
Steriopolo (2017) argued that in Russian, n is a separate phrase head, i.e., a head of a cyclic
domain (contrary to Kučerová who suggests that only a complete DP is a phase). Here I assume
that derivation operates cyclically and phase heads trigger spell-out of the cyclic domains below
them (Marantz 2001; Marvin 2002; Embick 2010; Kramer 2015, among others). I also assume
that once a cyclic domain is spelled-out, it cannot be accessible to later operations (the ‘Phase
Impenetrability Condition’ – Chomsky 2001).
Consider, for example, the structure in (29) for the Russian data (28b) above ‒ interesn-aja
nov-yj vrach, ‘interesting-FEM new-MASC doctor’. There are two independent cycles in the
derivation: an n-cycle and a D-cycle. The n-cycle results in default gender showing masculine
agreement with the adjective ‘new’ (modifying a profession), whereas the D-cycle results in
context-dependent gender agreement showing feminine agreement with the adjective
‘interesting’ (modifying a female). A detailed discussion and analysis of the structure is available
in Steriopolo (2018).
Returning to human sex-differentiable nouns in NR, we observe that there are two options
available for female-denoting nouns: either (i) default masculine gender, as in (30a) and (31), or
(ii) context-determined feminine gender, as in (30b).
22
(30) a. moy
s’istrá
b. may-á
my-MASC sister
my.FEM
‘my sister’
(31)
s’istrá
sister
‘my sister’
Iwón-ay
dóchka
tam.
his-MASC
daughter
there
‘His daughter is there.’
Consider, for example, the structure in (32). There are two phase heads: n and D. The probe D
with an unvalued gender feature [GEN_] encounters a goal n that lacks a gender feature, the
operation FIND(f) will fail (in the sense of Preminger 2014), and there is no valuation of the
gender feature on D. In this case, two outcomes are possible: (i) default gender agreement (ncycle of the derivation), and (ii) context-dependent gender agreement (D-cycle of the derivation).
I propose the following analyses of the NR data (30a, b) above. First, moy s’istrá, ‘my.MASC
sister’ is an instance of failed agreement. In (33), the probe D with an unvalued gender feature
[GEN_] encounters a goal n that has no gender feature, the operation FIND(f) fails and the
gender feature on D remains unvalued. The lack of valuation results in masculine default.
23
Second, moy-a s’istrá, ‘my.FEM sister’ is an instance of contextually determined feminine
gender. In (34), valuation occurs from the context and it is determined from the natural gender of
the referent, who is a female. Here, the contextual feature [FEMALE] is inserted in D, which
results in feminine gender agreement.
Bergelson and Kibrik (2010: 307) observe that during the first day of their fieldwork in
the village of Ninilchik, a fluent speaker looked out of the window and, in response to seeing
an approaching car, said: moy doch pr’ishol, ‘my.MASC daughter came.MASC’. Notice that the
speaker used masculine gender agreement with both the possessive pronoun and the verb in the
past tense. Bergelson and Kibrik (2010: 309) note that when the speaker was asked whether it
is also possible to say may-á doch, ‘my.FEM daughter’ (with feminine gender agreement), the
reply was a confident “yes”. Thus, we observe that the insertion of the contextual feature
[FEMALE] is optional and it is the speaker’s choice, whether or not to insert this feature.5
See also Aikhenvald (2016: 26) who observes that across languages, the “unmarked category appears in
neutralized contexts, or when one does not wish to be specific.”
5
24
According to the current proposal, the data moy doch pr’ishol, ‘my.MASC daughter
came.MASC’ (with masculine agreement) are analyzed as lacking grammatical gender. Thus, in
the structure (35), the contextual feature is not inserted and the gender agreement is masculine
by default.
In contrast, in (36a-d), the contextual feature [FEMALE] is present.
(36) a. Moy-á
my-FEM
mat’
m’in’á
mother me
paslá-l-a
send-PST-FEM in chicken.house
‘My mother sent me to the chicken house.’
b. Máma t’ibé
mama you
zwá-l-a.
call-PST-FEM
‘Mama called for you.’
c. Bábushka m’in’é nakarm’-íl-a.
grandma me
feed-PST-FEM
‘Grandma fed me.’
d. Bábushka m’in’é pasalawá-l-a.
grandma me
w kur’átn’ik.
kiss-PST-FEM
‘Grandma kissed me.’
25
A structure in (37) is proposed to account for the data in (36a) above, in which both the
possessive pronoun moy-á, ‘my-FEM’ and the verb in the past tense paslál-a, ‘sent-FEM’ show
feminine agreement. Here, the feature [FEMALE] is inserted in D. The predicate must agree
with it, which leads to feminine agreement with both the possessive pronoun and the verb in the
past tense.
An important by-product of the system proposed here is that it correctly rules out a logical
possibility of the possessive pronoun showing feminine agreement, whereas the predicate is
masculine. The hypothetical data are given in (38a). In (38b), the possessive pronoun moy-á,
‘my-FEM’ is feminine and the verb in the past tense paslá-l, ‘sent-MASC’ is masculine. This is
unexpected by Corbett’s (1991) agreement hierarchy as well as by the current analysis because in
(38b), the feature [FEMALE] has been inserted, but the predicate does not agree with it, which
produces ungrammatical data. No such data have been found in the dictionary.
(38) a. *Moy-á mat’
m’in’á paslá-l
my-FEM mother me
send-PST.MASC
w
kur’átn’ik.
in
chicken.house
‘My mother sent me to the chicken house.’
26
With respect to this analysis, the following question arises: how can the current proposal account
for mixed gender agreement in NR? Only instances of predicative mixed gender agreement have
been found in the dictionary, with no instances of DP-internal mixed gender agreement, unlike in
Contemporary SR. More data are needed in order to determine whether DP-internal mixed
gender agreement is used in NR.
The data (5a, b) above with predicative mixed gender agreement are repeated in (39a, b)
for convenience. In the data, we observe a single pattern of mixed gender agreement. The
possessive pronouns agree in masculine gender, while the predicative adjectives agree in
feminine gender.
(39) a. Iwón-ay doch
mán’in’k-aya.
b. Násh-iy
dóchka
harósh-aya.
daughter
good-FEM
his-MASC daughter small-FEM
our-MASC
‘His daughter is small.’
‘Our daughter is good.’
Under the current proposal, when the contextual feature [FEMALE] is inserted, the predicate
must agree with it. In this regard, the following question arises. Since the predicative
adjectives mán’in’k-aya, ‘small-FEM’, as in (39a), and harósh-aya, ‘good-FEM’, as in (39b),
show feminine gender agreement, it means that the feature [FEMALE] has been inserted in the
derivation. But the question is where it is inserted since the possessive pronouns iwón-ay, ‘hisMASC’
and násh-iy, ‘our-MASC’ show masculine agreement. If it is inserted in D, as it is claimed
27
here, we expect the possessive pronouns to also show feminine gender agreement, as shown in
(40).
One way to account for data with mixed gender agreement could be to assume that the feature
[FEMALE] can be inserted higher in the derivation, e.g., in the copular,6 as in Pereltsvaig
(2007), or on a higher level of the DP-projection, as in Steriopolo (2018). Steriopolo (2018)
assumes the multiple-layer DP-hypothesis after Zamparelli (1995 and subsequent work), who
argues that the DP is a layered structure, as diagrammed in (41). Zamparelli (1995: 262) suggests
that only elements in the head of SD can receive a referential interpretation. Steriopolo (2018)
proposed that in Russian, the semantic gender feature [FEMALE] can be inserted into this
particular position.
6
The agreement of the copular with the feature [ FEMALE] can be seen in NR when it is used overtly in the past
tense, which is in the feminine form: bul-a, ‘was-FEM’.
28
If this proposal is on the right track, the structure (40) above could be reanalyzed as (42) below,
containing a multiple-layer DP, in which the feature [FEMALE] is inserted higher than the
possessive pronoun ‘his’. This assumption together with a cyclic domains assumption, described
above, could account for the data iwón-ay doch mán’in’k-aya, ‘his-MASC daughter small-FEM’, in
which the possessive pronoun shows default masculine gender agreement, whereas the
predicative adjective shows feminine agreement (for a similar analysis of mixed gender
agreement with Russian demonstratives see Steriopolo [2018]).
29
Another question that arises with respect to the current proposal is the following. What
about the 15 inanimate nouns (all listed in Appendices A, B, and C) that seem to trigger
feminine agreement (called ‘exceptional’ here)? How can we account for these nouns under the
current proposal? Turning to the meanings of these nouns, we observe that they mostly denote
(i) nature, such as names of fish (chórn-aya tr’iská, ‘black-FEM cod’), birds (krásn-aya
br’úshka, ‘red-FEM belly/robin’), plants (s’ín’-aya smaród’ina, ‘blue-FEM currant’), water/tide
(póln-aya wadá, ‘full-FEM water/high tide’); (ii) some set expressions (zap’isn-áya kn’íshka,
‘note-FEM book’); and (iii) some old Russian syings and rhymes (see the Usage category
describing such nouns in the dictionary), as in Másla pagás-l-a!, ‘Oil burn.out-PST-FEM (Usage:
a rhyme which people in Ninilchik liked to repeat); Ádn-a ras samarás!, ‘One-FEM time is
enough!’.
I would like to suggest that such nouns could be analyzed as idiomatic expressions, so-called
‘living fossils’ (the term is from Progovac 2015), remnants of the language of the first Russian
traders in Alaska. If this idea is on the right track, then in contemporary NR, the –a ending in these
15 expressions is not an indication of the feminine gender; instead, it is part of the root, as
diagrammed in (43). More research is needed to resolve this issue in NR.
3.3 Cross-linguistic data
Similar gender systems to that in NR are attested cross-linguistically. In such systems, only sexdifferentiable nouns can trigger contextual gender agreement (masculine or feminine, depending
on the sex of the referent) while the remaining nouns are assigned grammatical gender by
default.
For example, Kramer (2015: 74-76) describes a gender system in Dieri (Pama-Nyungan).
In this language, a noun that denotes a female human or animate is feminine, and all other nouns
30
are non-feminine. When gender of an animate is unknown or irrelevant, non-feminine agreement
is used, as in (44).
(44) Dieri: Nhawu-rda
3NON.FEM.NOM-VICINITY
kupa
muntya.
child.NOM
sick
‘This child is sick.’
(Kramer 2015: 76)
Kramer (2015: 80) also mentions that “in many Omotic languages, gender is assigned almost
entirely based on biological sex and masculine is assigned by default to almost all inanimates”.
In two Omotic languages, however, Zargulla and Zayse, the feminine default is used. For
example, the sentence in (45) can mean either ‘she is a deaf woman’ or ‘she is a deaf person’,
which means that the noun ‘person’ in the sex-neutral interpretation is feminine.
(45) Zargulla: Ɂíso-í
3FEM-NOM
tulle
Ɂatsí-tta.
deaf
person-COP.3FEM
‘She is a deaf woman/person.’
(Kramer 2015: 81)
Corbett (1991: 8-13) describes such systems as ‘semantic’. For example, in Dizi (or Maji), a
noun that denotes females and diminutives is feminine while all other nouns are masculine
(Corbett 1991: 11), as illustrated in Table 4.
Table 4: Gender in Dizi (from Steriopolo and Wiltschko 2010: 10)
Criterion
Gender
Examples
Gloss
Female or diminutive
feminine
dade, kieme, orce
girl, small pot,
small broom
Other
masculine
dad, kiemu, orca
boy, pot, broom
A similar system is found in Halkomelem (Salish): a noun that denotes females and diminutives
is feminine; all others are non-feminine/unmarked (Wiltschko 2008; Gerdts 2013), as in Table 5.
31
Table 5: Gender in Halkomelem (from Steriopolo and Wiltschko 2010: 10)
Criterion
Gender
Examples
Gloss
Female
feminine
the álex,
the sister
Other
unmarked
te álex
the sibling
Such gender systems could be analyzed similarly to NR, i.e. as containing a plain n with no
grammatical gender features, in which gender is assigned by morphological default. Sexdifferentiable nouns, however, are assigned gender only context-dependently (based on the sex
of the referent and also possibly based on the size of the referent in the case of diminutive
nouns).
3.4 Summary
I have argued that in NR, there are no gender features on the nominal head, but a semantically
interpretable gender feature can be inserted at D and determined depending on the natural gender
(sex) of the referent. The outcome is twofold: either (i) failed gender agreement, when no
contextual gender feature is inserted, which results in masculine default, as indicated in (46a); or
(ii) feminine gender agreement, when the feature [FEMALE] is inserted, as shown in (46b).
32
4
Conclusions
This work has presented a novel morphosyntactic analysis of grammatical gender in NR, a
highly-endangered dialect of the Russian language spoken in Alaska. It has been argued that no
gender features are specified on the n-head in NR. Grammatical gender is assigned by masculine
default. The semantically interpretable feature [FEMALE] can be inserted at D in cases when the
sex of the referent is relevant to the speaker.
The proposed system can account for a variety of data with human nouns, in which two
variants are systematically used: (i) nouns referring to females with masculine default gender;
and (ii) nouns referring to females with inserted feminine gender. In addition, this system can
account for mixed gender agreement (masculine and feminine) in NR.
The following broader questions are outside the scope of this morphosyntactic analysis and
must be left for further investigation: (i) is there individual variation among Ninilchik speakers in
33
choosing gender agreement? And if so, (ii) what are the sociolinguistic factors involved in
determining the choice of gender agreement?
Acknowledgements: I sincerely thank Mira Bergelson and Andrej Kibrik for their insightful
comments on this research project. Grateful thanks go to the anonymous reviewer for their very
helpful comments and suggestions. This research was supported by a DFG (German Research
Foundation) research grant to Olga Steriopolo (4/2016 – 3/2019).
References
Acquaviva, Paolo. 2009. Roots and lexicality in distributed morphology. In Alexandra Galani,
Daniel Redinger & Norman Yeo (eds.), York Papers in Linguistics 2(10): York-Essex
Morphology Meeting, 1-21.
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2016. How gender shapes the world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baker, Mark. 2008. The syntax of agreement and concord. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Bergelson, Mira & Andrej Kibrik. 2010. The Ninilchik variety of Russian: Linguistic
heritage of Alaska. Slavica Helsingiensia 40. 320-335.
Bergelson, Mira, Andrej Kibrik, Wayne Leman & Marina Raskladkina. 2017. A dictionary of
Ninilchik Russian. Anchorage: Minuteman Press.
Borer, Hagit. 2005. In name only, Structuring sense Volume I. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Carstens, Vicki. 2000. Concord in minimalist theory. Linguistic Inquiry 31. 319-355.
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Roger Martin, David Michaels
& Juan Uriagereka (eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard
Lasnik, 89-155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in
language, 1-52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Corbett, Greville. 1991. Gender. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Daly, Conor. 1985. Russian language death in an Alaskan village. Paper presented at UC
Berkeley Linguistics Colloquium 10.
34
Daly, Conor. 1986. Evonajmat‘ ves‘noс television karaulil – His mother watched TV all night
long: On the loss of gender as a grammatical category in Alaskan Russian. Paper
presented at California Slavic Colloquium, UC Berkeley, April 1986.
Danon, Gabi. 2011. Agreement and DP-internal feature distribution. Syntax 14. 297-317.
Embick, David. 2010. Localism vs. globalism in morphology and phonology. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Embick, David. 2012. Roots and features (An acategorial postscript). Theoretical Linguistics 38.
1-2.
Embick, David & Alec Marantz. 2006. Architecture and blocking. Ms., University of
Pennsylvania & Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Embick, David & Rolf Noyer. 2007. Distributed morphology and the syntax/morphology
interface. In Gillian Ramchand & Charles Reiss (eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic
interfaces, 289-324. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gerasimova, Anastasia. 2017. Рассогласование по роду в русской именной группе:
квантитативное исследование [Gender mismatch in Russian: A quantitative study].
Rhema 4, Vestnik of Sholokhov Moscow State University for the Humanities: Philology
Series. 50-60.
Gerdts, Donna. 2013. The purview effect: Feminine gender on inanimates in Halkomelem Salish.
Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS) 37. 417-426.
Halle, Morris. 1997. Distributed morphology: Impoverishment and fission. In Benjamin
Bruening, Yoonjung Kang & Martha McGinnis (eds.), MITWPL 30: Papers at the
Interface, 425-449.
Halle, Morris & Alec Marantz. 1993. Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection. In
Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (eds.), The view from building 20: Essays in
linguistics in honor of Sylvain Bromberger, 111-176. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Josefsson, Gunlög. 1995. The notion of word class and the internal makeup of words. Working
Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 56. 1-45.
Josefsson, Gunlög. 1997. On the principles of word formation in Swedish. Lundastudier i
nordiskspråkvetenskap. Lund: Lund University Press.
Kantarovich, Jessica. 2012. The linguistic legacy of Russians in Alaska. Russian contact and
35
linguistic variation in Alaska, with special attention to Ninilchik Russian. Ms., The
University of Chicago.
Kramer, Ruth. 2015. The morphosyntax of gender. Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics
58. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kučerová, Ivona. 2018. φ-features at the syntax-semantics interface: Evidence from nominal
inflection. Linguistic Inquiry 49(4). 813-845.
Landau, Idan. 2016. DP-internal semantic agreement: A configurational analysis. Natural
Language and Linguistic Theory 34. 975-1020.
Lyutikova, Ekaterina. 2015. Features, agreement, and structure of the Russian noun phrase.
Russkiiyazyk v nauchnom osveshchenii 30. 44-74.
Marantz, Alec. 1997. No escape from syntax: Don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy of
your own lexicon. In Alexis Dimitriadis, Laura Siegel, Clarissa Surek-Clark & Alexander
Williams (eds.), U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 4: Proceedings of the 21st
Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium, 201-225.
Marantz, Alec. 2001. Words. Paper presented at WCCFL 20, University of Southern California,
Los Angeles.
Marvin, Tatjana. 2002. Topics in the stress of syntax of words. Cambridge, MA: MIT
dissertation.
Matushansky, Ora. 2013. Gender confusion. In Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng & Norbert Corver (eds.),
Diagnosing syntax, 271-294. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Matushansky, Ora & Alec Marantz. 2013. Distributed morphology today: Morphemes for Morris
Halle. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nevins, Andrew. 2007. The representation of third person and its consequences for person-case
effects. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 25. 273-313.
Pereltsvaig, Asya. 2007. Copular sentences in Russian. Dordrecht: Springer.
Pesetsky, David. 1995. Zero syntax: Experiencers and cascades. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Pesetsky, David. 2013. Russian case morphology and the syntactic categories. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Preminger, Omer. 2014. Agreement and its failures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Progovac, Ljiljana. 2015. Evolutionary Syntax. Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
36
Ritter, Elizabeth. 1995. On the syntactic category of pronouns and agreement. Natural Language
and Linguistic Theory 13. 405-443.
Sauerland, Uli. 2004. A comprehensive semantics for agreement. Handout from the PhiWorkshop, McGill University, Montreal, August 27.
Steriopolo, Olga. 2017. Nominalizing evaluative suffixes in Russian: The interaction of
declension class, gender, and animacy. Poljarnyj vestnik: Norwegian Journal of Slavic
Studies 20. 18-44.
Steriopolo, Olga. 2018. Mixed gender agreement in the case of Russian hybrid nouns. Questions
and Answers in Linguistics 5(1). 1-15.
Steriopolo, Olga & Martina Wiltschko. 2010. Distributed GENDER hypothesis. In Gerhild
Zybatow, Philip Dudchuk, Serge Minor & Ekaterina Pshehotskaya (eds.), Formal studies
in Slavic linguistics, 155-172. New York: Peter Lang.
Wiltschko, Martina. 2008. The syntax of non-inflectional plural marking. Natural Language and
Linguistic Theory 26(3). 639-694.
Zamparelli, Roberto. 1995. Layers in the determiner phrase. Rochester, NY: University of
Rochester dissertation.
Zamparelli, Roberto. 2008. On the interpretability of φ-features. In Cécile De Cat & Katherine
Demuth (eds.), The Bantu-Romance Connection, 167-199. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Appendix: Exceptional uses of gender in Ninilchik Russian (NOM.SG)
A. adn-a
one-FEM
ras
time
‘one time’
(e.g., Ádn-a ras samarás! ‘Once is enough!’)
B. Bába
Yagá kost’an-áya nagá; nos w patalók wros.
grandmother Yaga bony-FEM
leg;
nose in ceiling grew
‘Old lady Yaga had a bony leg; her nose grew to the ceiling.’
(Usage: An old Russian saying)
37
(See also: Nóga slamát-aya, ‘leg broken-FEM’. The noun nagá ‘leg’ is also used in the
masculine gender: pálachn-ay nagá ‘peg-MASC leg’; d’ir’iw’án-ay nagá ‘wooden-MASC
leg’; zádn-ay nagá ‘hind-MASC leg’)
póln-aya wadá
full-FEM water
‘high tide’
(Also used in the masculine gender: póln-ay wadá ‘full-MASC water’)
chórn-aya pt’ítsa
black-FEM bird
‘blackbird’
(Also used in the masculine gender: chórn-ay pt’ítsa ‘black-MASC bird’)
krásn-aya br’úshka
red-FEM
belly’
‘red belly/robin’
(Also used in the masculine gender: krásn-ay br’úshka ‘red-MASC belly’)
zap’isn-áya kn’íshka
note-FEM
book
‘note-book’
(Also used in the masculine gender: moy kn’íga ‘my.MASC book’)
krásn-aya smaród’ina
red-FEM currant
‘red currant’
(See also: s’ín’-aya smaród’ina, ‘blue-FEM currant’)
chórn-aya tr’iská
black-FEM cod
38
‘black cod’
Éta may-á
s’imyá.
this my-FEM
family
‘This is my family.’
Raspúh-l-a
zhíla.
get.swollen-PST-FEM vein
‘The vein got swollen.’
Kúra
yáytsu sn'is-l-á.
chicken egg
lay-PST-FEM
‘The chicken laid an egg.’
C. Akóshka atkr’ít-a.
window open-FEM
‘The window is open.’
(Also used in the masculine gender: Moy akóshka tsíst-ay. ‘My.MASC window cleanMASC.’;
Akóshka slamá-l-sa. ‘Window break-PST-REFL.MASC.’)
Dóbr-aya útra!
good-FEM morning
‘Good morning!’
Másla pagás-l-a!
oil
burn.out-PST-FEM
‘The oil burned out!’
(Usage: a rhyme which people in Ninilchik liked to repeat)
Sám-aya gláwn-aya kushаn’a – p’irók.
most-FEM main-FEM food
cake
39
‘The most important food is cake.’
40
View publication stats