Abstract
Grammatical gender is independent of biological sex for the majority of animal names (e.g., any giraffe, be it male or female, is grammatically treated as feminine). However, there is apparent semantic motivation for grammatical gender classes, especially in mapping human terms to gender. This research investigated whether this motivation affects deductive inference in native German speakers. We compared German with Japanese speakers (a language without grammatical gender) when making inferences about sex-specific biological properties. We found that German speakers tended to erroneously draw inferences when the sex in the premise and grammatical gender of the target animal agreed. An over-generalization of the grammar-semantics mapping was found even when the sex of the target was explicitly indicated. However, these effects occurred only when gender-marking articles accompanied the nouns. These results suggest that German speakers project sex-specific biological properties onto gender-marking articles but not onto conceptual representations of animals per se.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 514-536 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Cognitive Science |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |
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Keywords
- Deductive reasoning
- Grammatical gender
- Language and thought
- Linguistic relativity
- Property inference
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Artificial Intelligence
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Medicine(all)
Cite this
All Giraffes Have Female-Specific Properties : Influence of Grammatical Gender on Deductive Reasoning About Sex-Specific Properties in German Speakers. / Imai, Mutsumi; Schalk, Lennart; Saalbach, Henrik; Okada, Hiroyuki.
In: Cognitive Science, Vol. 38, No. 3, 2014, p. 514-536.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - All Giraffes Have Female-Specific Properties
T2 - Influence of Grammatical Gender on Deductive Reasoning About Sex-Specific Properties in German Speakers
AU - Imai, Mutsumi
AU - Schalk, Lennart
AU - Saalbach, Henrik
AU - Okada, Hiroyuki
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Grammatical gender is independent of biological sex for the majority of animal names (e.g., any giraffe, be it male or female, is grammatically treated as feminine). However, there is apparent semantic motivation for grammatical gender classes, especially in mapping human terms to gender. This research investigated whether this motivation affects deductive inference in native German speakers. We compared German with Japanese speakers (a language without grammatical gender) when making inferences about sex-specific biological properties. We found that German speakers tended to erroneously draw inferences when the sex in the premise and grammatical gender of the target animal agreed. An over-generalization of the grammar-semantics mapping was found even when the sex of the target was explicitly indicated. However, these effects occurred only when gender-marking articles accompanied the nouns. These results suggest that German speakers project sex-specific biological properties onto gender-marking articles but not onto conceptual representations of animals per se.
AB - Grammatical gender is independent of biological sex for the majority of animal names (e.g., any giraffe, be it male or female, is grammatically treated as feminine). However, there is apparent semantic motivation for grammatical gender classes, especially in mapping human terms to gender. This research investigated whether this motivation affects deductive inference in native German speakers. We compared German with Japanese speakers (a language without grammatical gender) when making inferences about sex-specific biological properties. We found that German speakers tended to erroneously draw inferences when the sex in the premise and grammatical gender of the target animal agreed. An over-generalization of the grammar-semantics mapping was found even when the sex of the target was explicitly indicated. However, these effects occurred only when gender-marking articles accompanied the nouns. These results suggest that German speakers project sex-specific biological properties onto gender-marking articles but not onto conceptual representations of animals per se.
KW - Deductive reasoning
KW - Grammatical gender
KW - Language and thought
KW - Linguistic relativity
KW - Property inference
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84898844320&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/cogs.12074
DO - 10.1111/cogs.12074
M3 - Article
C2 - 23957504
AN - SCOPUS:84898844320
VL - 38
SP - 514
EP - 536
JO - Cognitive Science
JF - Cognitive Science
SN - 0364-0213
IS - 3
ER -