Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2007, Page 113

KYN OG MÁLSAMBAND - DØMl í FØROYSKUM-DONSKUM
OG KATALANSKUM-SPONSKUM
111
G2, can be related to the fact that the
Catalan word took the opposite gender from
the original Spanish one. In general, there
are few productions of the correct gender in
Catalan, which reflect the lack of natural-
ness in the usage of the gender of les postres
and therefore the idea that this attribution to
the opposite gender (and also number) may
have been decided as a way to create a lin-
guistic norm of Catalan contrary to the
Spanish entry in order to keep forms as dif-
ferent as possible. As we see from the re-
sults, though, this attempt would not be
really working.
4.2.5. senyal - m., Spanish: senal - f;
‘sign ’
The word comes from the Latin substantivi-
zed adjective sígnális, which, in turn,
comes from signum, neuter. In Spanish it
took the feminine but, in most of the Ro-
mance languages form - in Portuguese,
Italian, French - it evolved to the masculine
form, and it is found with this gender even
in some old Spanish texts (Coromines,
1980). However, the Catalan usage of the
Spanish feniinine gender is documented as
a “non-accepted Spanish loanword from”
both by Coromines (1980) and by Alcover
& Moll (1930-1962).
ln Catalan, substantives with the same
ending (-al) are usually feminine: catedral
(‘cathedral’), inoral (‘morals’ or ‘morale’),
canal (‘channel’). They could be used by
die speaker as analogy and would serve as
influence, together with the Spanish gender
of la sehal, to produce the Catalan word
with the feminine gender.
As a fínal remark on the grammatical
background of the word, it is worth pointing
out that it is a quite highly polysemic word.
It refers to ‘mark’, ‘road sign’, ‘sign of the
cross’, ‘beep’ (like that of the telephone, for
instance) and others. This fact implies that
the word is used in several semantic fields,
some of them belonging to contexts in
which Spanish is a more usual language
than Catalan. lt is the case for instance of
‘sign of the cross’, which for many people
was leamt in Spanish, since during Franco’s
times schooling was only in Spanish and
religion was an essential part of education.
In order to elicit the word, the picture of a
road sign was shown. This was another
word not tested among G1 due to the high
probability of their early vocabulary not
comprising it.
The coincidence of the phonological
endings and the polysemic characteristics
of the word may induce to the usage of the
Spanish gender. The effect of education in
Catalan, thus on G2, may have again an
important role, since the wrong gender
usage of the word is quite strongly correc-
ted by the Catalan grammar syllabuses at
secondary school.
Group % of Catalan gcnder usagc
G2 Grácia 62.5
G2 Nou Barris 30
G3 Grácia 41.66
G3 Nou Barris 28.57
Table 13. senyal
The highest percentage of productions with
the Catalan gender comes from the group