Home Chapter 6. On gender and number
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 6. On gender and number

A psycholinguistic review
  • Paolo Lorusso
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Search
Structuring Variation in Romance Linguistics and Beyond
This chapter is in the book Structuring Variation in Romance Linguistics and Beyond

Abstract

In the theory of agreement developed by Chomsky (2000, 2001) φ features are undifferentiated, they are organized in a bundle of features, despite the intrinsically different information that each of them carries. However, while person is found to have an autonomous status in many psycholinguistic studies, number and gender show contrasting results: some studies show a crucial difference in the processing of number and gender, others, mainly ERP, do not. We will review the different psycholinguistic findings and we will propose that number and gender simply denote different nominal classes. The difference found in some experiments for number and gender maybe linked to when the feature is made available in the comprehension of the sentence (early/late cues).

Abstract

In the theory of agreement developed by Chomsky (2000, 2001) φ features are undifferentiated, they are organized in a bundle of features, despite the intrinsically different information that each of them carries. However, while person is found to have an autonomous status in many psycholinguistic studies, number and gender show contrasting results: some studies show a crucial difference in the processing of number and gender, others, mainly ERP, do not. We will review the different psycholinguistic findings and we will propose that number and gender simply denote different nominal classes. The difference found in some experiments for number and gender maybe linked to when the feature is made available in the comprehension of the sentence (early/late cues).

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction: Structuring thought, externalizing structure 1
  4. Part I. Micro‑ and macro-variation in syntax
  5. Chapter 2. Gender, number and inflectional class in some Northern Italian dialects 31
  6. Chapter 3. Objects and subjects in the left periphery 57
  7. Chapter 4. Notes on infinitival relatives in Italian 73
  8. Chapter 5. Negation and negative copulas in Bantu 85
  9. Chapter 6. On gender and number 97
  10. Chapter 7. Micro‑ and macro-variation 111
  11. Chapter 8. Concealed pseudo-clefts? Evidence from a Lombard dialect 121
  12. Chapter 9. Negation patterns across dialects 133
  13. Chapter 10. A note on left-peripheral maps and interface properties 149
  14. Chapter 11. Italian faire -infinitives 161
  15. Chapter 12. Optional vs obligatory movement in Albanian (pseudo)-raising constructions 177
  16. Part II. Clitics and pronouns from a theoretical perspective
  17. Chapter 13. Clitic stress allomorphy in Sardinian 195
  18. Chapter 14. Clitics and vowel epenthesis 215
  19. Chapter 15. Overabundance in Hungarian accusative pronouns 223
  20. Chapter 16. Unstable personal pronouns in Northern Logudorese 241
  21. Chapter 17. Object clitics for subject clitics in Francoprovençal and Piedmontese 257
  22. Part III. Sound pattern and syntactic structure
  23. Chapter 18. Are Sardinian vocatives perfectly regular? 271
  24. Chapter 19. Phonological correlates of syntactic structure 283
  25. Chapter 20. Metaphony as magnetism 297
  26. Chapter 21. Some reflections on the syllabification of clusters 307
  27. Part IV. Language in context
  28. Chapter 22. Diachronic and synchronic lexical interactions in the Italo-Balkan linguistic space 323
  29. Chapter 23. Lexical-semantic analysis of the political language 337
  30. Chapter 24. Dialects and neuroscience 351
  31. Chapter 25. Remarks on the vulnerability of grammar 365
  32. Chapter 26. Some Celto-Albanian isoglosses and their implications 379
  33. Subject index 391
  34. Language index 393
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.252.06lor

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction: Structuring thought, externalizing structure 1
  4. Part I. Micro‑ and macro-variation in syntax
  5. Chapter 2. Gender, number and inflectional class in some Northern Italian dialects 31
  6. Chapter 3. Objects and subjects in the left periphery 57
  7. Chapter 4. Notes on infinitival relatives in Italian 73
  8. Chapter 5. Negation and negative copulas in Bantu 85
  9. Chapter 6. On gender and number 97
  10. Chapter 7. Micro‑ and macro-variation 111
  11. Chapter 8. Concealed pseudo-clefts? Evidence from a Lombard dialect 121
  12. Chapter 9. Negation patterns across dialects 133
  13. Chapter 10. A note on left-peripheral maps and interface properties 149
  14. Chapter 11. Italian faire -infinitives 161
  15. Chapter 12. Optional vs obligatory movement in Albanian (pseudo)-raising constructions 177
  16. Part II. Clitics and pronouns from a theoretical perspective
  17. Chapter 13. Clitic stress allomorphy in Sardinian 195
  18. Chapter 14. Clitics and vowel epenthesis 215
  19. Chapter 15. Overabundance in Hungarian accusative pronouns 223
  20. Chapter 16. Unstable personal pronouns in Northern Logudorese 241
  21. Chapter 17. Object clitics for subject clitics in Francoprovençal and Piedmontese 257
  22. Part III. Sound pattern and syntactic structure
  23. Chapter 18. Are Sardinian vocatives perfectly regular? 271
  24. Chapter 19. Phonological correlates of syntactic structure 283
  25. Chapter 20. Metaphony as magnetism 297
  26. Chapter 21. Some reflections on the syllabification of clusters 307
  27. Part IV. Language in context
  28. Chapter 22. Diachronic and synchronic lexical interactions in the Italo-Balkan linguistic space 323
  29. Chapter 23. Lexical-semantic analysis of the political language 337
  30. Chapter 24. Dialects and neuroscience 351
  31. Chapter 25. Remarks on the vulnerability of grammar 365
  32. Chapter 26. Some Celto-Albanian isoglosses and their implications 379
  33. Subject index 391
  34. Language index 393
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 22.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/la.252.06lor/html
Scroll to top button