Grammatical Gender and Phonological Differences - Essay Example

Typically number distinctions are the best-served syntactic category using the dual forms.
3. Grammatical gender refers to distinguishing between masculine and feminine or neuter for every noun. The distinction is typically limited between human nouns and nonhuman nouns that refer to inanimate objects. Noun classes refer to an extension of the grammatical gender concept such that nouns are classed on several distinctions other than human and nonhuman. These classes could be composed of any number and styles of distinctions from one language to another. Numeral classifiers tend to count objects by placing them in specific classes while counting them at the same time. This tradition is more common in East Asian languages.

4. The best method to test for a noun is to allow the informant to construct as many morphological forms as possible for each word. It is advisable to allow the informant to use gender classifications as well as other grammatical devices to discover as many variations as possible. In contrast, to test for pronouns, it is relevant to see if adjectives or certain other grammatical forms can modify the word. If modification with this method is possible, then the word is a pronoun and vice versa.
5. Phonological differences as in the Polish case mean that the field worker may assume that the few tried phonological variations are all that is required for classification. However, this may not be true at all and further classification may be required depending on the language’s peculiarities.

6. Suppletion refers to the use of a particular word in the inflected form of another particular word when both words are not cognate in any manner. Suppletive forms tend to be highly irregular as the gap in the paradigm is provided by an unrelated paradigm. For example, the plural of girl is girls in English but the plural of man is not to man. Instead, it is men.
7. Some features that can be marked on verbs morphologically include persons, numbers, gender, negation, tense or aspect, and voice.
8. When carrying out elicitation, it is impractical to go through every single word being related by the informant since it would affect efficiency. However, if too much speed is used then there is a fear of losing accuracy so both wants must be balanced.

9. To avoid boredom during an elicitation session, it is useful to allow the informant to go through small texts that he can concentrate on. Additionally, it is a good idea to change the activity for short periods so that the informant does something different that would not get him bored.
10. A citation form refers to the form that a native speaker would use to produce a particular word or sentence in isolation. Citation forms are different from one language to another and may not be natural for the field worker to decipher. Only a continuous comparison with already collected forms would allow a reasonable comprehension of such a situation and this may take time. Read More