The Influence of Grammatical Gender on Hindi and German Speakers' Sex Categorization1

THE INFLUENCE OF GRAMMATICAL GENDER ON HINDI AND GERMAN SPEAKERS' SEX CATEGORIZATION1

Jaralvilai Charunrochana2

Introduction

According to the Linguistic Relativity 1959). However, even those who claim that Hypothesis, the grammatical system of a aender has meaning must accept that its 0 . . language influences the perception and dearee of semantic transparency 1s quite categorization of the reality of its speakers. Im~ , as evidenced in that not all masculine Gender, as a grammatical category, should nouns refer to male beings, and not all have such an influence, too. Gender is a feminine nouns refer to female beings, even orammatical category found in many 0 if they generally do. lang uages, especia lly Inda -European languages. It concerns the categorization of The imperfect correlation of gender and sex nouns in those languages into groups: is the starting point of this study. I would masculine, fe minine, and, in languages with like to see whether, in the case of languages three genders, neuter. with gender, speakers describing animate beings whose sex does not correlate with There is sti II much di vergence of opinion as the gender of no uns referring to them choose to the origin and connotation of gender. to follow their grammar and indicate the Some linguists and grammarians believe that gender of the nouns or choose to indicate ~he . gender is merely a meaningless form (Fodor sex of the animate beings. I would also like 1959). Some believe that gender has to examine whether the number of genders connotation of sex (Ervin 1962, Konishi in a language affect the degree to which its 1994 ), and others be!ie ve that gender has speakers choose to indicate gender or sex other connotations such as concreteness (i.e., to see whether the speakers of abstractness (MUiler 1898, cited in Fodor lanau0 aaes0 with different numbers of genders indicate gender and sex in different degrees.)

The present study was conducted on two 1 This article is an excerpt from my M.A. thesis languages with different numbers of (Charunrochana l 997). genders: Hindi, a language with two 2 Ph.D. student, Department of Linguistics, genders, and German, a language with three Chulalongkom university, Bangkok, Thailand

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genders. These two languages belong to the 2) cho.u laRki jaegi same language family, Indo-European, so small(FEM) child(FEM) will-go(FEM) that with the exception of gender number, 'the small girl will go.' they should have many common characteristics. The adjectives and verbs in these two Hindi sentences are inflected for gender according to the noun in the sentences; ais the What Is Gender? masculine suffix, i is the feminine suffix.

Gender, as mentioned above, is a Zubin (1992) gives similar morpho-syntactic grammatical category concerning the criteria for distinguishing noun classes from categorization of nouns of a language into noun classification. He also states that noun groups. However, gender is not the only c lasses and noun c lassification are phenomenon of this type. According to semantically different. For him, noun classes Dixon ( 1986) there are two types of h ave a lower degree of semantic linguistic classification: first, the lexico transparency. Zubin does not explain the syntactic phenomenon, which he calls "noun semantic basis of noun classes in detail, but c lassificatio n" (including numeral he mentions that sex is one of them. classifiers), and second, the grammatical According to Zubin, gender is a subset of category of "noun class" (including most noun classes. It is the noun class that is types of gender systems). Gender and other semantically based on sex. kinds of noun classes are defined by: Ideas about connotation and the semantic l. Size: There is a small number of noun basis of gender are not unanimous. One of class sets in a language (usually, from 2 to the problems is that not all li nguists use the around 20). same term. Some linguists see gender as a kind of noun class while others see gender 2. Morphological status: Noun classes are and noun class as identical. Those in the obligatoril y marked by inflection and, latter group sometimes refer to Zubin 's therefore, found only in agglutinative or "noun class" as "gender" and Zubin ' s inflectional languages. "gender" as " noun class". For them, therefore, gender and sex do not relate 3. Grammatical use: The inflection of noun semantically. classes is usually applied to the noun itself and also concordially applied to other words Gender, in my opinion, is a noun class that in the sentence, such as demonstratives, semantically relates to sex to some degree. I adjectives, or verbs say "to some degree" because there are many cases when gender seems arbitrary or J) cho.tfi /aRka jaega relates to other meanings. There is evidence small(MAS) child(MAS) will-go(MAS) that in some, at least Indo-European, 'the small boy will go. ' l anguages, t he terms iorc " sex" and" gen d er" relate in meaning. In many cases, we can use

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the word "sex" for "gender" or use "gender" Gender seems arbitrary for most nouns for "sex". I do not think this is just an referring to inanimate beings. Hardly any accident because the subsets of sex (male, one can explain why ' book' is neuter in female) also relate in meaning and use to the German but feminine in Hindi, why almost subset of gender (masculine, feminine). all plant and flower names are masculine in Hindi and feminine in German, or why all In a German dictionary, the word month names are masculine in both Genus 'gender' is defined as languages. Some Hindi nouns referring to grammatisches Geschlecht 'grammatical inanimate beings come in pairs: masculine sex' (Duden Deutsches Universal Wor and feminine. The feminine members of terbuch 1989). In German we can use either such pairs usually denote smaller or more Gesch/ect ' sex' or Genus 'gender' to refer delicate varieties of objects; for example, to this kind of noun class. gha!J7.fii (MAS) ' bell' is bigger than Wel c h es Ges c hle c t/ gha!J7.fi(FEM) 'small bell'; rassii (MAS) Genus hat dieses Wort? ' What sex/gender ' rope' is bigger than rassi (FEM) 'string' is this word?' (Harper Collins German (McGregor 1977: 165). In this case gender English English-German Dictionary 1990: seems to have some meaning but the 260). We can use either we1blich 'female' meaning is about size, not the sex of the or feminin 'feminine' in a similar context. object. in der femininen/weiblichen Form ' in the feminine/female form'. lt is the same in Even in the case of animate beings where Hindi and Sanskrit where the word li!J7ga gender can denote sex, Hindi and German means both 'grammatical gender' and 'sex'; speakers use gender for this purpose strTli0ga means both 'feminine gender' and optionally. Some nouns that refer to animate 'female sex', and pulli!J7ga means both beings occur in feminine and masculine 'masculine gender' and 'male sex'. pairs, the feminine nouns li terally referring to female beings and masculine ones Besides the close relation between the referring to male beings. Generally, one meanings and uses of these terms, sex is member of the pair is marked and refers always clearly stated as one of many hints o nly to animate beings w ith the for determining the gender of nouns. We can corresponding sex (masculine corresponds find such hints in grammar books. For to male, feminine corresponds to female). example, in a German grammar book The other member of the pair is unmarked (Paxton 1986: 14- I 5), the gender of some and refers to animate beings of the kind nouns can be identified by meaning. The regardless of their sex. names of days, months, seasons, weather, Hindi and motor cars as well as the nouns referring 3) cuha(MAS) to male persons and animals have a strong ' male mouse', ' mouse' (unmarked) tendency to be masculine. The names of cuhiyii (FEM) most frees and fl owers as well as nouns 'female mouse' (marked) referring to female persons and animals have 4) adhyapak(MAS) a strong tendency to be feminine. ' male teacher' ' teacher' (unmarked)

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adhyapika (FEM) unmarked gender of ' mouse', for example, ' female teacher' (marked) is feminine in German but masculine in Hindi. German 5) Katze (FEM) Implications of Gender 'female cat' 'cat' (unmarked) Kater (MAS) My interest in gender is not limited to its ' male cat' (marked) syntactic or semantic properties. What 1 am 6)Freund(MAS) interested in is whether gender, as a ' male friend' 'friend' (unmarked) phenomenon in the grammar of a language, Freundin (FEM) affects the thought of its speakers. This view 'female friend' (marked) is known as Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, also known as the Sapir-Whorf As the examples above show, Hindi and Hypothesis, the Whorfian Hypothesis, or the German have two nouns which refer to each Linguistic Determinism Hypothesis (See animate being; ' mouse', 'teacher', 'cat', and Mandelbaum 1949, Carroll 1956, Lucy 'friend'. The marked one in each pair refers 1992). The main idea of this hypothesis is to the animate being of the corresponding that the grammatical system of a language sex. Here, cuhiya is feminine in gender and has an influence on the way its speakers marked. It refers to only a 'female mouse', perceive, understand, and interpret realities adhyapika (FEM) refers to only a 'female in the world. This view was interpreted into teacher', Kater(MAS) refers to only a ' male many versions with some differences. In its cat', and Freundin (FEM) refers to only a weakest version, the claim is that language 'fema l e friend'. Their unmarked has an influence on the memory of its counterparts, on the other hand, can refer to speakers. a stronger version is on perception, the animate being of either sex. cuha (MAS) and the strongest version is that language can be either a male or female mouse; affects the thought of its speakers adhyapak(MAS) can be either a male or (Niyekawa-Howard 1972). I will not discuss female teacher; Katze (FEM) can be the differences here because this single topic either a male or female cat, and Freund could take up a whole book and still not (MAS), again, can be either a male or determine which versions are right or wrong. female friend. From now on, I will call the I hypothesize only that the gender system in noun from each pair that refers to animate a language affects its speakers' thought to beings of either sex as an "unmarked noun" some degree and that the difference in the and its gender as "unmarked gender" in number of genders between any two contrast with a "marked noun" with "marked languages also causes some difference in gender" which refers to animate beings of a their speakers' thought. Thought is abstract, certain sex. and it is very difficult to study one's thought directly. We, therefore, should examine Again, . whether masculine or feminine someone's thought through hi s/her gender is unmarked seems arbitrary and perception of things. varies from language to language. The

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From the characteristics of the gender masculine or feminine nouns. The degree of system, the implications of gender are: semantic transparency of each gender in languages with two genders might be lower First, although gender and sex have some than that in languages with three genders. degree of semantic relationship, there are Again, when the speakers of languages with many cases where gender has nothing to do two genders are familiar w ith such semantic with sex as mentioned above. Speakers of a distortion of nouns referring to inanimate language with gender are, therefore, familiar beings, they tend to think in the same way as with the cases where masculine gender does with nouns referring to animate beings. not denote male sex, feminine gender does These implications of gender lead me to the not denote female sex, and neuter gender hypotheses of my study: does not denote neutral sex or sexlessness. To assign gender to a noun referring to an 1. Speakers of languages with gender use inanimate being, such speakers just follow gender markers to indicate gender more the grammar of their language, habitually often than sex, and, in the case of nouns that doing the same thing for all nouns in their occur in pairs of feminine and masculine, language. As long as the gender of a word speakers use the unmarked genders which corresponds to the sex of the referred are more generic and can substitute for their animate being, there is no problem. counterpart more often than marked ones. Problems occur when the sex of an animate 2. When speakers of languages with gender being does not correspond to the gender of say something about animate beings whose the noun referring to it. Speakers have to sex does not correspond to the gender of the choose to indicate either gender, according noun, the speakers of languages with two to grammar, or sex, according to reality. genders use gender markers to indicate the gender of the noun more often than the Second, the categorization of noun, i.e., speakers of languages with three genders. gender system, in some languages is more "similar" to the categorization of sex in the Experiment real world than that in other languages. In the real world, objects are categorized into To prove my hypotheses, r conducted an three or four groups: male, fe male, sexless experiment in which the subjects have to and/or neutral sex. The system of three choose to indicate either sex or gender, i.e., genders is similar to this since it has to give a written description of some masculine, fem inine, and neuter. Despite the animate beings whose sex does not similarity, the categorization of all nouns in correspond to the gender of the nouns a language w ith three genders is still a kind referring to them. I selected 17 basic Hindi of "distortion" (masculine is no more male, and German nouns referring to human feminine is no more female, and neuter is no beings and animals that are common in mo re ne utra l sex or sexless). The Indian and German society and created categorization of nouns into tw

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respectively. In the case of each German female being. All the nouns used in this neuter noun, two pictures were used, one experiment are shown in Table 1. depicting a male being, the other depicting a

Hindi German sex of sex of animate animate meaning gender word beings in gender word beings in the the pictures pictures 1 musician MAS sa0gitakiir female MAS Musiker female 2 friend MAS dost female MAS Freund female 3 teacher MAS adhyapak female MAS Lehrer female 4 artist MAS ka/akar female MAS Kunst/er female 5 doctor MAS daktar female MAS Arzt female 6 farmer MAS kisiin fema le MAS Bauer female female 7 child MAS la~ka female NEU Kind male female 8 baby MAS bacca female NEU Baby male 9 cat FEM bi/IT male FEM Katze male 10 ant FEM cim tT male FEM Ameise male II mouse MAS cuha female FEM Maus male 12 fish FEM macha/i male MAS Fisch female 13 elephant MAS hatM female MAS Elefant female 14 dog MAS kutta female MAS Hund female fe male 15 ·sheep MAS bheR female NEU Schaf male female 16 rabbit MAS kharagos female NEU Kaninchen male female 17 crocodile MAS magaramacch female NEU Krokodi/ male

Table 1: Nouns, their gender, and sex of the animate beings in the pictures used in the experiment

I asked the subj ects to describe more German subject, I asked each of them to pictures than I really needed for analysis. describe 24 pictures and the excess data, Althou-gh r needed descriptions of only 17 desc~iptio ns of animate beings whose sex pictures from each Hindi subject and corresponds to the gender of the nouns, were descriptions of only 22 pictures from each discarded after the experiment. I created two

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pictures of fish, for example, one female and Hindi the other male, because the word 'fish' is 7)mair[7 chotT mahi/a dekh masculine in German and feminine in Hindi. I small(FEM) woman see All subjects were asked to describe the pictures of both the female and male fish but rahT hum the Hindi subjects' description of female PROG(FEM) PRES fish and the German subjects' description of 'I (male/female) see a small woman.' male fish were discarded. I did this for two reasons. 1) It made conducting the German experiment easier. The same set of 8) !ch sehe eine kleine Frau experimental tools can be used with all I see a(FEM) small(FEM) woman subjects. 2) It helped me distract the subjects 'I see a small woman.' from guessing what the purpose of the study is. If the animate beings in the pictures The underlined elements are those I used in shown to them were always the sex that the analysis. They are, in Hindi, an corresponds to the marked gender of the attributive adj ective, and, in German, an nouns referring to them, some subjects may indefinite article and an attributive adjective. have noticed that my study is about gender. All of these elements must be inflected for the gender of their head noun. The experiment was divided into two phases, Experiment 1 and 2. Both were T he subj ects were also provided 12 conducted on the same group of subjects. adjectives which are commonly used in The subjects, I 0 native speakers of Hindi their language and asked to use only these and 10 native speakers of German, were adjectives. It is very necessary to provide recruited on a basis of personal relationship. adjectives to the Hindi speakers because only adjectives ending with a are inflected In Experiment 1, the subjects were shown for gender. The adjectives provided for the English nouns translated from the 17 Hindi speakers were ba!Ja 'big', chofa nouns mentioned above (see the "meaning" 'small', accha 'good', bura ' bad', mofa column in Table I). They were asked to ' fat', pa ta/a 'thin ', kala 'black', gora imagine the animate beings referred to by ' white' , ga0da' dirty' , dhTma'slow', the nouns and write down a sentence bu!Jha'old', and la0ba' long, tall'. describing these nouns. However, I did not let the subj ects describe the animate beings For German speakers, it is, in fact, not in their imagination freely, because, had I let necessary to provide any adj ectives because them do so, their description would have almost all adjectives in their language are varied in length, style, and pattern. I had to inflected for gender. However, I also asked limit the sentence pattern to make sure that them to use only grof3'big', k/ein 'small', the sentences I got contained the elements I gut'good', sch/ect'bad', dick'fat', di.inn needed fo r the analysis. For Experiment I, I 'thin ', schwarz'black' ' he//' fair' , schbn provided the fo ll owing sample sentences: ' beautiful', stark'strong', schwach 'weak',

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3 and hUbsch 'good looking' . This is because of the animate beings. I expected all the I wanted them to focus their attention on subjects to inflect each marker for unmarked their choice of adjectives from the list, not gender according to the grammar of their on any grammatical marking, especially language. If any subject inflected any gender marking. marker for another gender, the result from that subject would be discarded. However, I Data samples from Experiment 1 did not find such a case.

Hindi (after seeing the word "friend") After finishing :Experiment 1, the subjects 9)mairJ7 accha dost dekh took part in Experiment 2. They were shown I small(MAS) friend see pictures of animate beings whose sex does PROG(MAS) PRES not correspond to the unmarked gender of rah a hufJ? the noun referring to them. Each picture 'l see a good friend.' was accompanied by an English noun5 corresponding to the animate being in the German(after seeing the word "crocodile") picture; for example, the picture of a female 10) !ch sehe ein groj3es Krokodi/ music ian was accompanied by the word I see a(NEU) big(NEU) crocodile "musician" . The subjects were asked to ' I see a big crocodile.' write down what they saw in the picture with the adjectives, noun and sentence 4 English is a language without gender , so the pattern provided after seeing each picture. nouns provided gave no clue about the sex The sentence patterns provided are:

Hindi

3 11) At first, the adjectives fo r German and Hindi 11 .1) yah mahi/a baRi hai. speakers are the same but I found in the pre-test this woman big(FEM) is that those adjectives were, according to the ' This woman is big.' comment of some German pre-test subj ects, not 11 .2) yah moti mahila patra /ikh suitable for describing the pictures. I finally this fa t(FEM) woman letter write changed the adjective list for German subjects rahi hai. but kept the list for Hindi subjects unchanged because it is quite difficult to find Hindi adjectives which are both suitable in meaning where they had stayed in Thailand for a long and end with a time and could speak Thai quite well. 4 Eng li sh is very suitable as the lingua franca in 5 The nouns provided are the same as those in this experiment because, besides being accepted Experiment!. It was necessary to provide nouns as the lingua franca of the world, it is a language to subjects even when the corresponding pictures without gender. It is impossible to communicate were provided because, without nouns provided, in Hindi and German without marking any the subject may have used nouns which describe gender. If I had used Hindi or German, the the pictures very well but which were not the subjects may have marked gender the way I nouns I wanted to study. For example, they may marked it. I also cornmunicated with some of have used the word 'woman' when I wanted them in Thai, which also has no gender, in cases them to use 'female doctor'.

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PROG (FEM)PRES 12.3) Sie ist gut. 'This fat woman is writing a letter.' she is good 11.3) vah acchT hai. 'She is good' he/she good(FEM) is 'She is good.' The underlined elements, again, are those I German used in the analysis. They are, in Hindi, 12) predicative adjectives in sentences 11.1) and 12 .l)Das ist eine ~ Frau. 11.3), and an attributive adjective and a verb This is a(FEM) big(FEM) woman in sentence 11 .2). In German, they are an 'This is a big woman.' indefinite article and an attributive adjeetive 12.2) Die Frau schreibt in sentence 12.1 ), a definite article in the(FEM) woman write sentence 12.2), and a pronoun in sentence einen Brief 12.3). The forms of those gender markers a letter are shown in Table 2 and Table 3. 'The woman is writing a letter.'

Suffix of adjective Suffix of verb Masculine -a -a Feminine -T -T

Table 2: Hindi gender markers used in the experiment

Suffix of Indefinite adjective Definite article Pronoun article (with indefinite article) Masculine ein -er der er Feminine eine -e die sie Neuter ein -es das es

Table 3: German gender markers used in the experiment

The sentence patterns for Hindi and German subjects are slightly different due to the differences in their gender marking system as shown in Table 4:

Hindi German Inflected for gender of singular head Article No article in the language noun Third person singular personal Pronoun No inflection for gender . pronouns, relative pronouns, and some

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indefinite pronouns are inflected for gender Both attributive and predicative Attributive adj ectives are inflected for Adjective adjectives ending with a are inflected gender of singular head noun for gender Verb Inflected for gender No inflection for gender

Table 4: The gender marking systems in Hindi and German

Data samples from Experiment 2

Hindi

Figure 2: rabbit (German) Figure I: musician (Hindi) Das Kaninchen tra'gt einen Schirm this rabbit hold an umbrella 13) yah sa0gTtakar lambT hai 'This rabbit is holding an umbrella.' this musician tall (FEM) is Es ist gut. ' This female musician is tall.' It is good yah acchT sa0g1-tagar vaya/in "It is good.' this good mus1c1an violin baja raM hai play PROG(FEM) PRES In 13) a H indi subject described the picture 'Thi s good female musician is of a female musician. A ll the underlined playing the violin.' markers are inflected for the feminine yah accM hai according to the female sex of the musician. He/ She good(FEM) is In 14), on the contrary, a German subject ' She is good.' described the picture of a female rabbit using the neuter gender of the word German Kaninchen 'rabbit' in hi s language. 14)Das. ist ein he/Jes 'This is a white rabbit.' this is a(NEU) white(NEU) Kaninchen. rabbit

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Results markers used by all the Hindi subjects, only 228 (34%) indicate sex, while 452 (66%) The results partly support my hypothesis. I indicate gender. German subjects, again, found that both groups of speakers used used only 220 (25%) gender markers to gender markers to indicate gender (or indicate sex but 660 (75%) to indicate unmarked gender) more than sex. Of all 680 gender as shown in the following graph.

100% ...... •...... I'...... ;.. :· . ·.::;: :. ...:· ...... ~~~~~~~...... ~..~ ,______. .-;.:...-.·::::...... ·.::...;: 80% ...... ,...... __ ...... 452 .~....:.~ .:..·.~.":~":...... ~. 660 O') 60% ·::,.-.·:.-::,... · :;: ~ .'\----~:~~;:~~~~~• ••••• • ••••••~ '""t:.J· Gend"'r ...... ><'. ;:...... ~;::.;:)~...... ~;:. .,-...../'• ,/'• /' iU ...... ;..":;::;..:.-..:;. ~ 40% ··:··:··.···:···1----~ m%m%~ o Sex ...... ,...... 20% 228 220 0% Hindi German Figure 3: Sex and gender markers used by all Hindi and German subjects

However, the results do not support the 17 pictures described by Hindi subjects, only other part of my hypothesis. It seems that three pictures ('female doctor', 'female Hindi speakers indicate sex more often than musician', and 'female teacher') were German speakers do. I will discuss th is later. described more often according to the sex of the animate being than to the gender of the That gender indication is preferred to sex nouns. Other three pictures ('female friend', indication is also supported by preferences 'female farmer', and 'female sheep') were of gender indication in the description of described equally according to sex and each picture. I found that the majority of the gender. The remaining l 1 pictures were pictures, again, were described more often described more often according to gender according to gender than to sex. Among the than sex as shown in Table 5 and Table 6 .

...'!:) ,,_ 1: c ,,_ CJ •'O Q) Q) a. ro CJ ·o .s::. Q) 0 O') 0 Q) .J::J- .s::. c CJ 0 0 .s::. ::l 01 Q) .J::J a. Q) - 0 l1J ti c •'O O') Q) ::l E .s - - 0 0 .s::. •'O :.c Q) •'O 0 ro ·-e"' e

('\ Sex 0 4 0 8 4 20 8 10 6 20 12 24 32 20 24 16 12

Gender 40 36 32 32 36 20 32 30 24 20 28 16 8 20 16 24 28

Table 5: Sex a1id gender markers in the Hindi subjects' descriptions of each picture

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The results from the German subjects also reveal the preference for gender. Only 5 of the 22 pictures reveal a preference for sex. All five pictures are pictures of grown-up human beings: female friend, female musician, female farmer, female doctor, and female artist. Only one picture ('female friend') was described equally according to sex and gender.

..!! c ~ i5"' 1: :.0 a. ~ .!!! 0 0 a. :ii -0 0 ..c 03 0 .. - .a ..c c ~ -0 "'0 0 >. 0 "'::> .a - a. .a 0 -:;:; Ol ..c .a ~ 0 fi .. c "' ~ .. E 0 ..c "' ~ :.c ~ :> 0 ~ .€ e e "' .£: .. ~ ~ () () ~ 2 () CJ) CJ)"' a: "' () CD 0 ~ a: w"' Lt ~ 2 ...... "' LL 0 ~

Gender 40 39 39 39 32 32 39 39 40 40 40 40 8 37 37 16 8 4 4 38 37 12

Table 6: Sex and gender markers in the German subjects' descriptions of each picture

If we ignore the small exception that our pictures used to describe animals. Hindi female sheep was described by Hindi subjects used gender markers and sex subjects more according to sex than some markers equally (50%, 160 from all 320 other human beings, and that our children markers) in the case of human beings, and and babies of both sexes were described used 81% markers (292 from 360 markers) by German subjects less according to sex according to gender and 19 % (68 from 360) than some animals; e.g., cat and dog, we can according to sex in the case of animals. The infer that both Hindi and German speakers difference between human beings and prefer indicating the sex of human beings to animals is much clearer in the case of the indicating the sex of animals. When they German subjects. Among 400 markers ( 4 describe an animal, they always fo llow their markers x 10 pictures x 10 subjects) used by grammar. They choose forms of adjectives, German subj ects to describe human beings, articles, pronouns or verbs according to the 201 of them (50.25%) indicate gender an~ gender of the noun referring to that animal. 199 (49.75%) indicate sex, which is almost In the case of human beings, it seems that the same ratio as found in the case of the the speakers often, but not always, choose Hindi subjects. Among the 480 markers (4 fo rms of the elements according to the sex markers x 12 pictures x 10 subjects) used to of the human being. In my experiment, describe animals, 459 (95.63%) of them there were 320 markers (4 markers x 9 indicate gender and only 21 (4.37%) indicate pictures x I 0 subjects) used by Hindi sex. subjects to describe human beings, and 360

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100% ...... :-.·....:;....:.. ...·... : ...... ,...... t'...• .t'•.t'...... • ...... ,,.. ...•...... ,,...... t' • .· • .t'• 80% .,...... , ...... ,...... ·:....:;/ ...:;....:: ,,,...... "...... ,...... ,. .... •"' •.!'•.'"• 292 ...... ,. .. 201 ,,...... 459 ;.:•;..:•;.:· ...... "'Qj 60% .,...... ,/'• ,/'• ,/'• .t'•.t'...... • .I' •. 8 Gender x. ,/' ...... ·.:··:··:: ,/'•.!'...... • .!'• iij ;.::.::...... -: • .,...... ,,. .... , :::'?: 40% •:.:-..·-:-::.. .t'•.t'•.t'•...... DSex ,/'•,/'•.t'...... • .t'•.t'• .t'• !"!:-: · ;,::;...... ::;:· 20% ...... ,...... ,, . 160 68 199 ,...... , ...... , 21 0% Human beings Animals Human beings Animals Hindi Hindi German German

Figure 4: Gender and sex markers in describing pictures of human beings and animals

Why do both groups of speakers indicate sex gender use more sex markers when referring for human beings more often than for to human beings than when referring to animals? The reason is, I think, that the sex animals. of humans is much more important to us than that of an animal. For human beings, From the data, there were some sets of sex not only categorizes us into 2 groups descriptions6 in which subjects indicated according to biological characteristics, male both the sex of the animate being and the and female, but it also determines our social gender of the noun as in the following roles. Sex always determines the way we examples: dress and the way we speak. It is very important to know the sex of the person we Hindi (describing the picture of a female are referring to, or talking with. The sex of rabbit) animals, in contrast, is not so important. 15) Some animal lovers may talk to male . 15.l)yah kharagos chota hai. animals in the same way they talk to boys this rabbit small(MAS) 1s and talk to female animals in the same way 'This male rabbit is small' they talk to girls and they may name their pet according to its sex. However, all these l 5.2)yah chota kharagos kahif!J things are optional. There is nothing this small(MAS) rabbit somewhere seri ously wrong, or perhaps nothing wrong ja rahr hai. at all, if we treat a male animal as a female go PROG(FEM) PRES one, or treat a female animal as a male one, 'This small male/female rabbit is whereas it may be impolite or may cause going somewhere.' problems if we treat a man as a woman, or treat _a woman as a man. This may force us to pay more attention to the sex of human 6 A set of descriptions, in this study, contains beings than to the sex of animals. It also three sentences made by each subject in makes the speakers of languages with describing each picture.

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15.3) vah motT hai. example 15), in which the verb and the he/she fat (FEM) ts predicative adjective (with pronominal head 'She is fat' noun) are marked according to sex. In the other two mixed-gender descriptions, the The predicative adjective (with nominal first three markers are marked for gender, head noun) in 15.1) and the attributive while only the predicative adjective (with adjective in 15.2) are marked for masculine, pronominal head noun) is marked according the gender of the word 'rabbit', whereas the to sex. It is, from Hindi data, the predicative verb in 15.2) and the predicative adjective adjective with pronominal head noun which (with pronominal head noun) in 15.3) are is marked according to sex most often. marked for feminine, corresponding to the sex of the rabbit in the picture. There are sixteen mixed-gender descriptions found in the German data but all of them are German (describing the picture of a male of the same pattern. In each of the child) descriptions, there is only one marker, a 16) pronoun, which is marked according to sex, 16.1) Das ist ein dLinnes Kind as shown in example 16). this is a(NEU) thin(NEU) child ' This is a thin child.' Although the markers that are marked 16.2) Das Kind hat ein Buch. according to sex most often are not the same the(NEU) child has a book in Hindi and German, they have something 'The child has a book.' in common. The markers that are marked 16.3) Er ist gut. according to sex most often in both he is good languages are those that occur with 'He is good.' pronouns, or are pronouns themselves. The reason that pronouns or the elements which The three markers in 16.1) and 16.2) are occur with pronouns are marked according marked for neuter, the gender of the noun to sex more often may be because the 'child'. Only the pronoun in 16.3) is marked function of a pronoun is not only to for masculine, corresponding to the sex of substitute for a noun but also to substitute the child in the picture. for an object in reality. Speakers can choose to use a pronoun with either function. When This phenomenon reveals that there are a pronoun grammatically substitutes for a some markers that are inflected according to noun, the pronoun must be in the same sex more often than others. I listed all sets of number, gender, person, case, or other description in which the subject indicated grammatical category as the substituted both gender and sex (let us call them noun. When a pronoun semantically "mixed-gender description") and noted substitutes for an object in reality, the which kind of marker is used most often pronoun must be in the grammatical according to the sex of the animate being. categories that correspond to the reality. In There are three mixed-gender descriptions Example 16, the German subject substituted found in the Hindi data. One of them is a male child in reality with the pronoun er

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' he'. The masculine gender of the pronoun much more important for the speakers than er corresponds to the male sex of the child. the sex of animals. If the subject chose to substitute for the neuter noun Kind'child', the neuter pronoun The results of this study also reveal that the es' it' must be used regardless of the sex of speakers of Hindi, a language with two the child in reality. In the case of Hindi, genders, use more sex markers than the pronouns are not inflected for gender. In speakers of German, a language with three Example 15, whether the subject chose to genders. This part of the results disproves substitute for a female rabbit in reality or for my hypothesis, in which each gender in a the masculine noun 'rabbit', the pronoun he language with three genders has a higher used is still vah 'he/she' . But we can see degree of semantic relationship with sex in from the other element, here, the verb, reality than each gender in a language with whether he substituted the pronoun for the two genders, and, according to my noun or for the rabbit in reality. The hypothesis, the speakers of a language with femin ine form of the verb tells us that the three genders should use more sex markers subject's vah semantically substitutes for a than the speakers of a language with two female rabbit and does not grammatically genders. That this part of the results does not substitute for a masculine noun. support my hypothesis is possibly explained by two reasons. First, my hypothesis is Conclusion and Discussion wrong. Each gender in a language with two genders has a higher degree of semantic The analysis of Hindi and German data leads transparency than that in a language with to the conclusion that speakers of both three genders. Second, I chose the wrong languages, perhaps also speakers of other populations. Indian and German societies languages with gender, do not often mark are too different in their use of foreign the sex of animate beings through gender languages. From personal conversations marking even though their language a ll ows with my subjects, I realized that Indian them to do so. When the sex of an animate society is a multilingual society. English is being does not correspond to gender of the very important for Indian people in both noun referring to it, the speakers prefer formal and informal situations, in some fol lowing their grammar by marking cases even more important than local adjectives, verbs, pronouns, articles, and language(s). Indian people are proud to use pronouns occurring with the noun according English and code switching between English to the gender of the noun, not according to and local language in conversation is widely the sex of the animate being in reality. accepted. This mean that our Hindi subjects, However, in referring to human beings, who are all bilingual or multilingual, may Hindi and German speakers seem to use have been influenced by English, which is a more sex marking than in referring to language without gender. In English almost anima,ls. It is, perhaps, because the sex of all nouns are used according to their actual human beings is not a mere biological sex. The interference may have made our characteristic but it determines our social Hindi subjects use more sex markers than roles. The sex of human beings, therefore, is they would use without any linguistic

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interference. It is very different in German Lucy, J.A. 1992, Language Diversity and society where people prefer not to use any Thought: A Reformulation of the Linguistic foreign language. I suggest that this relativity Hypothesis. Gateshead. Cambridge experiment or a similar one be conducted University Press. again on two other languages with two and Mandelbaum D. G. (ED.).1949. _Seleted Writings three genders whose speakers have a more ofEdward Sapir in Language, Culture and similar background in terms of the use of a Personality. Berkeley: University of foreign language. California Press. McGregor, R.S. 1972. Outline ofHindi grammar, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Millier, G.H. 1898. Das Genus der Indogermanen References und seine urprtingliche Bedeutung. Jndogermanishche Forschungen 8. Carroll, John B. (ed.). 1956. Language, Thought, Niyekawa-Howard, A. M. 1972. The Current and Reality. Selected Writings of Benjamin Status of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. Lee Whorf Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press Working Papers in Linguistics 4: 1-30 Charuruochana, J. 1977. The relationship Paxton, N. 1986. German Grammar. Kent: between grammatical gender and sex in Hindi Hodder and Stoughton. and German speakers' world view. M.A. Zubin , D. A. 1992 .Gender and noun Thesis. Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkom classification . International Encyclopedia University ofLinguistics 2 : 41-43. ( "lfoii1~ "l!fYtT"IU ( lJ.~. ) . 2540. f'l'l1lJ~lJ~Utfr::1'1'11~

~~Yi°LL~:: LW f'llUtftn"1f'IU'!J'il~q~vi111l!t15u~u~:: ml!t1 ltl'il TiJu. ii'Vlmwwutftfrry ry1lJ1'!1uru-YiVl

l'lru::tinl!tM11'llilf ivl1ft~nTcUlJ1'11ii'VltnfttJ ) Dixon, R.M.W. 1986. Noun Classes and Noun Classification in Typological Perspective. In C. Craig (ed.). Noun Classes and Categorization, pp. 13-52. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Duden Deutsches Universal Worterbuch A- Z. 1989. Mannheim: Dudenverlag. Ervin, S. M. 1962. The connotations of gender. Word 18:249-261. Fodor, I. 1959. The origin of grammatical gender. Lingua 8: 1-41 , 186-214. Harper Collins German-English, English German Dictionary. I 990. Glasgow: Collins. Konishi, T. 1994, The Connotations of Gender: A Semantic Differential Study of German and Spanish. Word 45: 317-327.

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