Practice exercise
We discussed the case system of an imaginary variety of Pidgin English which we called “Pseudo-English.” Now imagine that several other varieties are discovered on neighboring islands, and you are sent to investigate. As part of this study, you collect the following NP examples. For each language, based on the data available, determine whether it has a gender system or a classifier system. Give reasons for your decisions, and state the criteria which you would use for determining the class of each noun. (Hyphens represent affix boundaries.)
Pseudo-English B:
(i) this-i horse this-u bottle
this-i hound this-u box
this-i hare this-u boulder
this-i husband this-u budget
this-i housewife this-u bicycle
As you collect Swadesh lists and other basic vocabulary samples, you find that 90 per cent of the nouns fit the patterns shown in (i). However, in collecting additional data you find a few forms like those in (ii). (Comparative evidence suggests that many of these forms are loan words.) In what way do these forms complicate your analysis? How many noun classes are there in this language? What labels would you suggest for naming the classes? Which class do each of the words in (ii) belong to, and why?
(ii) this-i behemoth this-u helix
this-i boy this-u hippopotamus
Pseudo English C:
(iii) one plark pig this flusp leaf
that plark rooster one flusp mat
those three plark puppies those four flusp blankets
my four plark buffalo
that siggle rifle this chorp house
those two siggle blossoms two chorp bicycles
those three chorp tables
four chorp nations
that chorp problem
You manage to find some bilingual speakers of this dialect and ask them to translate these phrases into standard English. The translations are not surprising: ‘one pig,’ ‘this leaf,’ ‘that rifle,’ etc. You ask what plark means, and they tell you it means ‘tail.’ You learn that chorp means ‘fruit.’ You ask about siggle and flusp and are told: “Those words don’t mean anything, but they make the phrases sound better.” How many noun classes are there in this language? Is it a gender system or a classifier system? Why?
