Project description
How bilinguals tackle grammatical gender conflicts
Some languages divide nouns by masculine or feminine gender, while others also have a neuter class. For instance, chocolate is masculine in French. The German language has three genders – the third being “neuter”. Languages like English lack grammatical gender. What happens when bilinguals speak one language with grammatical gender and one without? The EU-funded ConfliGram project will investigate how speakers deal with this gender assignment. The focus will be on two language pairs: Purepecha-Spanish in Mexico and Batsbi-Georgian in Georgia. Purepecha and Georgian have no grammatical gender, while Spanish has two genders and Batsbi has five. The project will investigate the gender assignment strategies at work and identify the social dimensions of code-switching and bilingual grammar.
Objective
Languages differ with respect to the expression of grammatical gender. English lacks a grammatical gender distinction, using the same determiner the for both the room and the bread. Spanish, by contrast, marks gender, as in feminine la habitación ‘the room’ vs masculine el pan ‘the bread’. Bilinguals may speak one language with grammatical gender and one language without. When they mix these languages in the same phrase, known as code-switching, the strategy used to assign gender varies (e.g. el cookie or la cookie are both possible in Spanish-English). Existing accounts predict the language of the determiner in mixed noun phrases, but struggle to predict its gender. This project investigates how speakers deal with this gender assignment, using data from two typologically understudied language pairs: Purepecha-Spanish (Mexico) and Batsbi-Georgian (Georgia). Purepecha and Georgian have no grammatical gender, while Spanish has two genders and Batsbi has five, a more extensive system than any systematically studied to date. I will investigate the role of existing predictors of gender assignment, such as phonology and natural gender, and will introduce new variables, e.g. animacy and semantic domain. On the basis of naturalistic corpus data, I will design and run production and comprehension tasks probing the gender assignment strategies employed, testing the two main explanatory frameworks (Matrix Language, and minimalist). As both situations display patterns of dominant majority-minority language interaction, I will also investigate the social dimensions of code-switching, including behaviour and attitudes, identifying commonalities. This usage-based approach is in its infancy for lesser-studied minority languages, but results in high-quality, comparable data. Such data is necessary to bridge the gap with well-studied language pairs, to broaden our understanding of the individual languages, and to inform current models of code-switching and bilingual grammar.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities languages and literature general language studies
- humanities languages and literature linguistics phonology
- humanities history and archaeology history ancient history
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2018
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
75794 Paris
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.