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Reassessing gender in Ogbe-Oloma

  • Ronald P. Schaefer EMAIL logo and Francis O. Egbokhare
Published/Copyright: July 8, 2021

Abstract

We re-assess the gender system of Ogbe-Oloma, an Edoid village variety of Nigeria. System exponents are prefixes that define form class and reflect grammatical number. We find that eight agreement classes undergird fourteen genders, while seventeen nominal form classes frame twenty-five number inflections. Prefix mapping from inflection to gender is non-isomorphic. Mapping is however constrained by syllable shape, CV- versus V-, and alliterative sound quality of prefix consonant, not vowel. In addition, several number inflections trigger agreement in multiple genders leading to one gender that exclusively refers to nouns with human reference.


Corresponding author: Ronald P. Schaefer, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, USA, E-mail:

Funding source: U.S. Department of State

Award Identifier / Grant number: ASJY 1333

Funding source: U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities

Award Identifier / Grant number: PD-50004-06

Acknowledgments

Fieldwork related to this paper received support from the U.S. Department of State (College and University Affiliations Program grant ASJY 1333) and the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities (PD-50004-06), with further assistance from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the University of Ibadan. Finally, we thank an anonymous reviewer and the editors, Ines Fiedler and Tom Güldemann for their patience and constructive comments on earlier drafts.

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Published Online: 2021-07-08
Published in Print: 2021-07-27

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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