Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2007, Page 108

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GENDER IN LANGUAGE CONTACT: EVIDENCE
FROM FAROESE-DANISH AND CATALAN-SPANISH
influence of Spanish in the environment
might be playing a role here.
4.2.1.4. Summary
The words in the present group do not
constitute problems for Catalan speakers,
with respect to their gender marking in
Catalan. The children in Nou Barris are the
speakers who show more confusion with
respect to this. Perhaps they are at a deve-
lopmental stage where they need more in-
put in both languages to have a clearer idea
of which gender to use in each language.
Cognates present a further complication in
the acquisition process, especially in dis-
tricts where Spanish is highly active in the
environment, because of their similar form
in both languages. Hence, Spanish has a
detrimental effect on the acquisition of
Catalan gender in these cognate words in
the Spanish-speaking district.
4.2.2. Secondgroup: llum - m. and full
- m.
The words in the present group have in
common that they are possible in both
genders in Catalan although each gender is
associated with a different meaning. Hence,
llum means ‘light’ in feminine but ‘Iamp’ in
masculine. In turn, fulla (with the extra
feminine morphological marker -a) means
‘leaf’ whereas the masculine form full
refers to ‘sheet (of paper)’. It is important
to mention that these two words come from
neuter gender words in Latin.
4.2.2.1. llum - m., Spanish: luz -
f; ‘lamp’.
This word comes from Latin lúmen,
LÚMínis, n. Although neuter Latin words
generally took the masculine gender in
Catalan, llum showed a strong tendency to
take the feminine gender, possibly due to
the influence of lucem, f. However, the
feminine eventually refers to Tight’ where-
as the masculine refers to ‘lamp’ (Coromi-
nes, 1980). Spanish only has one referent,
which corresponds to the feminine Catalan
form.
Group % of Catalan gendcr usagc
G1 Grácia 12.5
G1 Nou Barris 0
G2 Grácia 66.66
G2 Nou Barris 68.42
G3 Grácia 65.21
G3 Nou Barris 79.16
Tablc 8. Ilum
The results are overall lower than those in
the previous group. The specialization of
gender might play a role in such a behavior.
Children seern to be at a loss because, if
cognates are difficult enough to acquire,
when a word can be associated with any of
the genders in a single language depending
on the referent, the task is even harder. And
in G1 Nou Barris, the influence of Spanish
reinforcing the gender with a different
meaning in Catalan does not help. Young
adults and adults also show the problematic
status in production of this lexical item.
4.2.2.2. full - m., Spanish: hoja -
f; ‘sheet (ofpaper)'.
As mentioned above, the Latin word Cata-