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In:All Things Morphology: Its independence and its interfaces
Edited by Sedigheh Moradi, Marcia Haag, Janie Rees-Miller and Andrija Petrovic
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 353] 2021
► pp. 41–54

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Chapter 3
A formal restriction on gender resolution

ORCiD logo with link | Stony Brook University
Published online: 25 August 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.353.03mor
Abstract
Resolved gender agreement occurs with coordination structures where combinations of two distinct genders are resolved into a different gender value. I have studied a representative sample of languages to understand why only a few of the logically conceivable patterns of agreement are attested. Starting from an underlying hierarchy of gender, I have constructed a pointwise algebra to represent various gender combinations. The gender hierarchy is directly extracted from the organization of the typological data. Combining abstract algebra and the mathematical notion of monotonicity helps us understand the restricted set of attested patterns to only allow monotonic mappings from the base hierarchy to output forms.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Monotonicity
  • 3.Gender resolution rules
    • 3.1Patterns of resolution
    • 3.2Typologically attested patterns of resolution
      • French
      • Slovene
      • Icelandic
      • Latin
      • Tamil
      • Archi
      • Chibemba
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
References (11)
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