Argentine Danish grammatical gender: Stability with Strongly Patterned Variation
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Argentine Danish grammatical gender: Stability with Strongly Patterned Variation. / Kühl, Karoline; Heegård Petersen, Jan.
In: Journal of Germanic Linguistics, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2021, p. 67-94.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Argentine Danish grammatical gender: Stability with Strongly Patterned Variation
AU - Kühl, Karoline
AU - Heegård Petersen, Jan
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This paper investigates the expression of grammatical gender in Heritage Argentine Danish. We examine a subset of the Corpus of South American Danish of approximately 20,500 tokens of gender marking produced by 90 speakers. The results show that Argentine Danish gender marking in general complies with the Standard Denmark Danish rules. However, there is also systematic variation: While there is hardly any difference compared to Standard Denmark Danish with respect to the definite suffix, gender marking on prenominal determiners differs from that in Standard Danish. More specifically, the less frequent neuter gender is more vulnerable, and common gender tends to be overgeneralized. Further, complex NPs with attributive adjectives show more variation in gender marking on prenominal determiners than simple NPs. As to sociolinguistic variation, the analysis shows that tokens produced by older speakers and speakers from settlements with a higher degree of language maintenance are consistent to a higher degree with Standard Danish gender marking. The paper compares these results with the results of studies of gender marking variation in other Germanic heritage languages. We conclude that the overall stability of grammatical gender in the Germanic heritage languages is a general pattern that only partly relates to social or societal factors.
AB - This paper investigates the expression of grammatical gender in Heritage Argentine Danish. We examine a subset of the Corpus of South American Danish of approximately 20,500 tokens of gender marking produced by 90 speakers. The results show that Argentine Danish gender marking in general complies with the Standard Denmark Danish rules. However, there is also systematic variation: While there is hardly any difference compared to Standard Denmark Danish with respect to the definite suffix, gender marking on prenominal determiners differs from that in Standard Danish. More specifically, the less frequent neuter gender is more vulnerable, and common gender tends to be overgeneralized. Further, complex NPs with attributive adjectives show more variation in gender marking on prenominal determiners than simple NPs. As to sociolinguistic variation, the analysis shows that tokens produced by older speakers and speakers from settlements with a higher degree of language maintenance are consistent to a higher degree with Standard Danish gender marking. The paper compares these results with the results of studies of gender marking variation in other Germanic heritage languages. We conclude that the overall stability of grammatical gender in the Germanic heritage languages is a general pattern that only partly relates to social or societal factors.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - heritage language
KW - heritage linguistics
KW - language contact
KW - bilingualism
KW - gender marking
KW - multi-factorial regression analysis
U2 - 10.1017/S1470542720000069
DO - 10.1017/S1470542720000069
M3 - Journal article
VL - 33
SP - 67
EP - 94
JO - Journal of Germanic Linguistics
JF - Journal of Germanic Linguistics
SN - 1470-5427
IS - 1
ER -
ID: 203017478