Abstract
This work presents a first morphosyntactic account of the category gender in Ninilchik Russian, a highly-endangered dialect of Russian, within the framework of Distributed Morphology. Furthermore, it compares gender in Ninilchik Russian with that of Contemporary Standard Russian. I show that, unlike Standard Russian, Ninilchik nouns have no grammatical gender features on the nominal head. Masculine is the default grammatical gender. Human nouns, however, can be assigned feminine gender through the context, which is determined by the natural gender (sex) of the referent. The investigation is multi-disciplinary. The anticipated results will be of interest to theoretical linguists, language typologists, language-area specialists, and language educators. Since Ninilchik Russian is on the verge of extinction, the findings will also be relevant to the fields of education and endangered language documentation, maintenance, and revitalization.
Acknowledgements
I sincerely thank Mira Bergelson and Andrej Kibrik for their insightful comments on this research project. Grateful thanks go to the anonymous reviewer for their very helpful comments and suggestions. This research was supported by a DFG (German Research Foundation) research grant to Olga Steriopolo (4/2016–3/2019).
Appendices
Exceptional uses of gender in Ninilchik Russian (nom.sg). Organized according to their gender and declension class in Standard Russian (SR).
Appendix A: Nouns that are masc in SR (declension class I)
| adn-a | ras |
| one-fem | time |
‘one time’ (e.g., Ádn-a ras samarás! ‘Once is enough!’)
Appendix B: Nouns that are fem in SR (declension class II)
| Bába | Yagá | kost’an-áya | nagá; | nos | w | patalók | wros. |
| grandmother | Yaga | bony-fem | leg | nose | in | ceiling | grew |
‘Old Lady Yaga had a bony leg; her nose grew to the ceiling.’ (Usage: An old Russian saying)
(See also: Nóga slamát-aya ‘leg broken-fem’. The noun nagá ‘leg’ is also used with masculine gender: pálachn-ay nagá ‘peg-masc leg’; d’ir’iw’án-ay nagá ‘wooden-masc leg’; zádn-ay nagá ‘hind-masc leg’)
| póln-aya | wadá |
| full-fem | water |
‘high tide’ (Also used with masculine gender: póln-ay wadá ‘full-masc water’)
| chórn-aya | pt’ítsa |
| black-fem | bird |
‘blackbird’ (Also used with masculine gender: chórn-ay pt’ítsa ‘black-masc bird’)
| krásn-aya | br’úshka |
| red-fem | belly’ |
‘red belly/robin’ (Also used with masculine gender: krásn-ay br’úshka ‘red-masc belly’)
| zap’isn-áya | kn’íshka |
| note-fem | book |
‘note-book’ (Also used with masculine gender: moy kn’íga ‘my.masc book’)
| krásn-aya | smaród’ina |
| red-fem | currant |
‘red currant’ (See also: s’ín’-ayasmaród’ina ‘blue-fem currant’)
| chórn-aya | tr’iská |
| black-fem | cod |
‘black cod’
| Éta | may-á | s’imyá. |
| this | my-fem | family |
‘This is my family.’
| Raspúh-l-a | zhíla. |
| get.swollen-pst-fem | vein |
‘The vein got swollen.’
| Kúra | yáytsu | sn’is-l-á. |
| chicken | egg | lay-pst-fem |
‘The chicken laid an egg.’
Appendix C: Nouns that are neut in SR (declension class IV)
| Akóshka | atkr’ít-a. |
| window | open-fem |
‘The window is open.’ (Also used with masculine gender: Moy akóshka tsíst-ay ‘my.masc window clean-masc’; Akóshka slamá-l-sa ‘window break-pst-refl.masc’)
| Dóbr-aya | útra! |
| good-fem | morning |
‘Good morning!’
| Másla | pagás-l-a! |
| oil | burn.out-pst-fem |
‘The oil burned out!’ (Usage: a rhyme which people in Ninilchik liked to repeat)
| Sám-aya | gláwn-aya | kushаn’a – | p’irók. |
| most-fem | main-fem | food | cake |
‘The most important food is cake.’
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