Grammatical Gender in American Norwegian Heritage Language: Stability or Attrition?

Terje Lohndal,Marit Westergaard

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00344

Abstract

This paper investigates possible attrition/change in the gender system of Norwegian heritage language spoken in America. Based on data from 50 speakers in the Corpus of American Norwegian Speech (CANS), we show that the three-gender system is to some extent retained, although considerable overgeneralization of the masculine (the most frequent gender) is attested. This affects both feminine and neuter gender forms, while declension class markers such as the definite suffix remain unaffected. We argue that the gender category is vulnerable due to the lack of transparency of gender assignment in Norwegian. Furthermore, unlike incomplete acquisition, which may result in a somewhat different or reduced gender system, attrition is more likely to lead to general erosion, eventually leading to complete loss of gender.

Highlights

In his seminal study, Corbett (1991, p. 2) states that “[g]ender is the most puzzling of the grammatical categories.” It involves the interaction of several components: morphology, syntax, semantics, phonology, as well as knowledge about the real world
Gender assignment is what is typically referred to as an inherent property of the noun, e.g., bil(M) “car” and hus(N) “house,” while gender agreement refers to agreement on other targets that is dependent on the gender of the noun, e.g., the indefinite articles and adjectives in en.M fin.M bil(M) “a nice car” and et.N fint.N hus(N) “a nice house”1
We follow Haugen (1953) in referring to this variety as American Norwegian, and here we study whether the use of gender differs in any way from the traditional use of gender in Norwegian dialects

Summary

Introduction

In his seminal study, Corbett (1991, p. 2) states that “[g]ender is the most puzzling of the grammatical categories.” It involves the interaction of several components: morphology, syntax, semantics, phonology, as well as knowledge about the real world. We refer to the marking on the noun itself as an expression of declension class (cf Enger, 2004; Enger and Corbett, 2012; see Kürschner and Nübling, 2011 for a general discussion of the difference between gender and declension class in the Germanic languages). This has an interesting consequence for the definite article in Norwegian, which is a suffix (more on this below).

Methods

Results

Conclusion