Gender and interpretation in Greek: Comments on Merchant (2014)

Yasutada Sudo,Giorgos Spathas

doi:10.5334/gjgl.1173

Abstract

Merchant (2014, “Gender mismatches under nominal ellipsis”, Lingua, 151: 9–32) makes the following two claims about nominal ellipsis in (Modern) Greek. (i) There are three classes of MASCULINE-FEMININE noun pairs that differ in whether nominal ellipsis with gender mismatch is possible. (ii) Nominal ellipsis with gender mismatch is possible in predicative positions but not in argument positions. We take issue with both of these claims. Our qualms about (i) are relatively minor. It appears that his primary data are hard to replicate, but we present novel sets of data involving focus constructions that also demonstrate that Greek has three classes of MASCULINE-FEMININE noun pairs. As for (ii), we argue that it is empirically inaccurate and nominal ellipsis with gender mismatch is in fact possible in argument positions as well. This is problematic for the analysis Merchant develops, as it is tailored to derive (ii). Furthermore, we argue that his analysis does not give a straightforward account of our observations about focus constructions. We put forward an alternative account of the interpretation of gendered nouns according to which there are three types of nouns with gender inferences: (a) those that have gender inferences in both assertive and presuppositional dimensions of meaning, (b) those that only have gender inferences in the presuppositional dimension of meaning, and (c) those that do not have gender inferences in their semantics but through competition with the opposite gender (gender competition).

Highlights

In this paper we will analyze the interpretation of gender-marking on nouns in (Modern) Greek
Our qualms about (i) are relatively minor. It appears that his primary data are hard to replicate, but we present novel sets of data involving focus constructions that demonstrate that Greek has three classes of masculine-feminine noun pairs
In order to account for the behavior of such nouns in focus constructions, we propose that gender inferences can be purely presuppositional or in the assertive dimension of the meaning

Summary

Introduction

In this paper we will analyze the interpretation of gender-marking on nouns in (Modern) Greek. In addition to noun pairs like adherfos-adherfi that contrast in gender, Greek has a class of nouns that only have one form but can trigger masculine or feminine agreement on determiners and adjectives, depending on the gender of the individual(s) they are used to describe. We failed to find a pair of gendered nouns that exhibited a reliable contrast between masculine and feminine antecedents even with such sentences For these reasons, we think Merchant’s (2014) data involving nominal ellipsis do not constitute conclusive evidence for his classification of noun-pairs with interpreted gender in Greek. We think Merchant’s (2014) data involving nominal ellipsis do not constitute conclusive evidence for his classification of noun-pairs with interpreted gender in Greek This does not mean that his classification needs to be rejected, as there are several possible reasons for our failure to replicate his results. While we are unable to pin down the exact reasons why the data turned out to be not as clear as we expected, we will raise further data involving focus constructions that support essentially the same classification of noun pairs with interpreted gender in Greek and that received relatively stable judgments among the 16 speakers we consulted

Focus constructions

Merchant’s theory

Classification of gendered nouns