Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2007, Side 96

94
Gender in Language Contact: Evidence
from Faroese-Danish and Catalan-
Spanish
Kyn og málsamband - dømi í føroyskum-donskum og katalanskum-
sponskum
Ariadna Benet', Susana Cortes2 and Hjalmar P. Petersen3
SFB 538 Mehrsprachigkeit, Max-Brauer-Allee 60, 22765 Hamburg, Týskland.
Emails: " ariadna.benet@uni-hamburg.de,2) susana.cortes@uni-hamburg.de
3) hjalmar.petersen@uni-hamburg.de
Úrtak
Greinin snýr seg um kynstillutan í tveimum tvímæltum
høpum. 1 tí fyrra partinum av greinini verður hugt at
føroyskum, og vit fara at vísa á, hvussu donsk lániorð
hjálpa at gera av, hvat kyn er ómarkað, tí flciri donsk
orð, sum eru felagskyn skifta k yn til hvørkikyn í før-
oyskum enn øvugt. Seinni parturin er um kynstillutan í
katalanskum arvorðum borið saman við spanskt, har
málini bæói ikki liava sama kyn. Vit síggja, at ein
brúkstendensur er í trimum aldursbókum (3-5, 19-23
and 32-40). Munurin cr mest at síggja, har munur er á,
hvussu nógv katalanskt verður lært í skúlunum.
Abstract
This article deals with gender assignment in two
different bilingual contexts. In the first part, we look at
Faroese, and will show how Danish loanwords help us
establishing default gender, as rnore Danish common
gender nouns end up as neuter than neuter as common
gender. The second part focuses on gender assignment
in Catalan words that have lexical cognates in Spanish
and which differ in gender in the two languages. It
observes usage trends among three age groups (3-5, 19-
23 and 32-40 years old) differing mainly in the dcgree
of Catalan received at school. The speakers are from
two districts of Barcelona (Grácia and Nou Barris)
differing in the presence and usagc of Spanish.
1. Introduction
The goal of our investigation is twofold: (i)
to show the status of borrowings when
establishing the notion of default gender in
a language and (ii) to look for possible
trends in the use of lexical cognates with
differing gender in the two languages invol-
ved in a language-contact situation. Thus,
the issue of gender assignment is dealt with
in both a theoretical - in the case of (i) -
and a usage-based approach - in the case of
(ii). We use data from Faroese-Danish lan-
guage contact in order to fmd evidence for
(i), and Catalan-Spanish language data in
order to find evidence for (ii).
1.1. Arbitrary or rule-based gender
assignment
Leonard Bloomfield wrote the following on
gender in Gemran, French and Latin:
There seems to be no practical criterion by
which the gendcr of a noun in German, French,
or Latin could be determined.
(Bloomfield, 1933:280).
Fróðskaparrit 55. bók 2007: 94-114