From gender to specificity in Bartangi

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From gender to specificity in Bartangi
ARTY OM BADEEV
Like other Pamir languages, Bartangi (Shughni-Roshani group) has retained the Iranian
opposition between masculine and feminine gender, reflected mainly by agreement on
demonstratives and verbs in the past and perfect. This system was previously analyzed as
predominately semantically motivated, distinguishing male, female and many minor semantic
classes such as bedding items, trees, bodies of water, footwear, etc. (Karamkhudoev 1973;
Karamshoev 1986). Each of these classes is supposed to be associated with either masc. or
fem. gender. At the same time, Bartangi has been noted for the gender flexibility of its nouns,
starting at least from Sokolova (1966, pp. 371-372). Edelman (1980) explained this flexibility
by the assignment of mass and abstract inanimate nouns to the masc., also singular and
concrete inanimate nouns to the fem. However, how this flexibility interacts with the
aforementioned lexical noun classes remains unclear.
The new data obtained as a result of Bartangi fieldwork makes it possible to propose the
reanalysis of Bartangi gender assignment. I claim, that there are five semantic classes in
Bartangi: male, female, higher animal, lower animal and inanimate. Male and inanimate
nouns are assigned to the masc., while female and lower animal to the fem. Higher animals
can be assigned to the common gender. Furthermore, nouns in Bartangi can agree in both
masc. and fem. depending on the properties of the noun phrase. The few exceptions are nouns
denoting male and female humans, as well as nouns denoting animals of specific sex (e.g.,
cow, bull), these strictly follow the biological sex. With lower animals and inanimates, gender
flexibility is anchored to the distinction between specific and non-specific noun phrase, as
shown in Table 1. In what follows, I will illustrate these assignment rules by examples. In this
paper I adopt the labels from Haspelmath (1997). That is, a specific phrase is a phrase that has
a referent in a speaker’s reality space, and a non-specific phrase is a phrase which does not
has a referent in the speaker’s reality space (Haspelmath 1997, pp. 108-109).
Gender assignment
Semantic class
Male Female Higher animal
(of unspecified sex) Lower animal Inanimate
Specific NP masc. fem. masc./fem. fem. masc. / fem.
Non-Specific NP masc. fem. masc./fem. masc. / fem. masc.
Lexical gender (proposed) masc. fem. common fem. masc.
Table 1. The rules of gender assignment in Bartangi.
There is a tendency in Bartangi for nouns in specific phrases to agree in fem., while in non-
specific phrases they agree in masc. In (1a) ‘blanket’ is found in a specific phrase, where it
agrees with the demonstrative in fem. In contrast, in (1b) the same noun is found in a non-
specific phrase, and ‘blanket’ agrees with the verb and demonstrative in masc.
(1) a. az=mim adyal zoz yim garm
OBJ=D1.OBL.F blanket take.IMP D1.NOM warm
‘Take this blanket, it is warm’.
b. ar ar pomirī čöd ik-das adyal
LOC.DOWN each Pamir house EMPH-such blanket
vud di az=ī=an xubaθ čūǰ
be.PST.M LNK OBJ=D3.OBL.M=3PL REFL make.PRF
‘Every Pamir house had such a blanket that they made it on their own’.
For inanimate nouns (including flora), the agreement in fem. is prohibited in non-specific
phrases (2), while in specific phrases both masc. and fem. marking occur.
(2) ič arar=ti ar boɣ parwarix
 na sawd,
NEG poplar=HAB LOC.DOWN garden growing NEG become.PRS.3SG
agar iči az dī (*dim) x
ac ca na δet
if INDEF OBJ D2.OBL.M D2.OBL.F water SUBD NEG give.PRS.3SG
‘No poplar would grow in a garden, if someone does not water it.’

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Regarding animals whose sex is not specified, there are two distinct categories. First, for
lower animals (e.g., insects, fishes, reptiles), masc. is prohibited in specific phrases when
denoting singular entities (4a), while in non-specific phrases both masc. and fem. marking
occur (4b). Second, for higher animals (birds and mammals of unspecified sex, including
humans), I found no constraints on agreement in both specific and non-specific phrases.
Regarding this nouns, agreement in masc. or fem. can be used to specify sex (5).
(4) a. pa dim (*dī) yi murcak ǰon
LOC.UP D2.OBL.F D2.OBL.M one ant life
ma-δa yid=ti žirāwd
PROH-beat.IMP D2.NOM=HAB bite.PRS.3SG
‘Do not touch this ant, it bites’.
b. ar māš ǰingāl tafāwsk aveg-ow bīft
LOC.DOWN we forest snake find-INF possible
ma-zāk wi=tör (um=tör)
PROH-step on.IMP D3.OBL.M=SUP D3.OBL.F=SUP
‘A snake can be encountered in our forest. Do not step on it’.
(5) yim mun-ā yiw paranda, āz=ti az dī
D1.NOM I.OBL-POSS one bird I.NOM=HAB OBJ D2.OBL.M
sīr kin-um
fed make.PRS=1SG
‘This is my (male) bird, I feed it’.
Nouns denoting people and higher animals of specific sex cannot change their gender
depending on phrase (non-)specificity (6).
(6) a. kaxwoy-ā čor ca na-vawd um
girl-POSS husband SUBD NEG-be.PRS.3SG D3.OBL.F
(*wī) pīd čöd um-ā (*wī-yā)
D3.OBL.M father house D3.OBL.F-POSS D3.OBL.M-POSS
‘If (any) girl does not have a husband, she lives at her father’s house’.
b. yid mun sar bašānd x
öǰ, āz=ti az
D2.NOM I.OBL very good bull I.NOM=HAB OBJ
dī (*dim) bašānd sir kin=um
D2.OBL.M D2.OBL.M good fed make.PRS=1SG
‘This is my best bull, I feed him well’.
To summarize, gender assignment patterns in Bartangi follow the extended animacy hierarchy
(Croft 2003, pp. 128-132). Gender assignment in the upper part of the hierarchy is lexical in
that it follows the inherent semantics (sex) of the noun, while (non-)specificity starts to play a
larger role the lower the nouns stands in the hierarchy. Male and female nouns have the most
stable gender assignment, not influenced by specific/non-specific status of the noun phrase.
Nouns denoting higher animals of unspecified sex could be referred to as common gender
nouns. In this class, the choice of gender depends on the sex of the intended referent. For
nouns lower in the hierarchy, gender agreement markers start to express specificity rather than
gender. The lower animal and inanimate have few, if any, lexical constraints on their gender
agreement. Their pattern is determined by specificity rather than any lexical or semantic
feature; therefore, they can be treated as unmarked for gender.
Therefore, Bartangi presents an interesting and, to the best of my knowledge,
typologically unique development where markers originally denoting agreement with lexical
gender partially switched to the purely context-based marking of (non-)specificity, while at
the same time retaining the status of gender agreement for certain semantic classes of nouns.
Literature: Croft, W. (2003). Typology. The handbook of linguistics. Edelman, D. I. (1980). K substratnomu
naslediju Centralʹnoaziatskogo jazykovogo sojuza. Voprosy jazykoznanija, 5. Haspelmath, M. (1997). Indefinite
pronouns. Clarendon Press. Karamkhudoev, N. (1973). Bartangskij jazyk. Doniš. Karamshoev, D. K. (1986).
Kategorija roda v pamirskix jazykax. Vypusk II. Doniš. Izdatelʹstvo LKI. Sokolova, V. S. (1966). Šugnano-
rušanskaja jazykovaja gruppa. Jazyki narodov SSSR. 362-397.

TENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON IRANIAN LINGUISTICS
(ICIL 10)
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University of Tuscia
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organisers:
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