Abstract
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) had two grammatical genders (common and neuter); the feminine was a shared innovation of the non-Anatolian part of the family. Using comparison with Modern Nepali, we argue that the puzzling feminine forms of the numerals ‘3’ and ‘4’ in Celtic and Indo-Iranian, and possibly also some similar constructions in Latin and Old Irish, are survivals of a system of numeral classifiers predating the full gender system. They contain the feminine element * s(o)r-, grammaticalized as a numeral classifier in PIE. A similar situation is attested in Nepali, where grammatical gender occurs alongside numeral classifiers. Analogies between numeral phrases in PIE and Nepali help elucidate the historical development in question.
Highlights
There is extensive literature on grammatical gender, relatively little attention has been devoted to well-described languages with concurrent classification systems, i.e., either different gender systems or gender and classifiers
Gender and classifiers are the two commonly distinguished types of nominal classification, i.e., “[...] classification of nouns and/or extralinguistic entities to which nouns refer that is grammaticalized to some degree, and expressed in one or more syntactic contexts that relate to nouns.” (Contini-Morava & Kilarski 2013:265)
Gender agreement is found in adjectives, verbs, possessive adjectives and ordinal numerals as well as the general classifier (see Example (1)): (1) Masculine vs. feminine gender in adjectives, verbs and possessive adjectives in Nepali (Allassonnière-Tang & Kilarski 2020:121–122)
Summary
There is extensive literature on grammatical gender, relatively little attention has been devoted to well-described languages with concurrent classification systems, i.e., either different gender systems or gender and classifiers. Nepali; Proto-Indo-European; nominal classification; grammatical gender; numeral classifiers In this paper we illustrate four attempts in the history of Indo-European at the development of systems of numeral classifiers – either successful (in Modern Nepali) or unsuccessful (in Latin, Celtic and IndoIranian).
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