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)

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Summary

Introduction

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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