PRELIMINARY NOTES ON GENDER ASSIGNMENT MANIPULATION IN SANVALENTINESE Cover Image

PRIMI APPUNTI SULLA MANIPOLAZIONE DELL’ASSEGNAZIONE DEL GENERE IN SANVALENTINESE
PRELIMINARY NOTES ON GENDER ASSIGNMENT MANIPULATION IN SANVALENTINESE

Author(s): Diana Passino
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Morphology, Other Language Literature
Published by: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai
Keywords: gender; number; recategorization; inflectional class; overdifferentiation; collective plural; Romance dialectology; metaphony;

Summary/Abstract: Preliminary Notes on Gender Assignment Manipulation in Sanvalentinese. This contribution draws attention on a peculiar feature of the Italo-Romance dialect spoken in San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore, where a subgroup of feminine nouns displays both feminine and masculine plural options. Gender shift to masculine in the plural seems to be exploited to obtain semantic differences related to countability and evaluation, namely to refer respectively to weak differentiation and pejorative meaning. This phenomenon, known as recategorization or gender assignment manipulation, is rather common in African languages of different families, but less pervasive and systematic in Romance. Gender and recategorization in Sanvalentinese are discussed in relation to inflectional classes, of which this contribution provides a sketch

  • Issue Year: 65/2020
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 329-350
  • Page Count: 22
  • Language: Italian
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