@misc{10481/92890,
year = {2024},
month = {4},
url = {https://hdl.handle.net/10481/92890},
abstract = {Languages can express grammatical gender through different ortho-phonological regularities present in nouns (e.
g., the cues “-o” and “-a” for the masculine and the feminine respectively in Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish). The
term “gender transparency” was coined to describe these regularities (Bates et al., 1995). In gendered languages,
we can hence distinguish between transparent nouns, i.e., those displaying form regularities; opaque nouns, i.e.,
those with ambiguous endings; and irregular nouns, i.e., those that display the typical form regularities but are
associated with the opposite gender. Following a descriptive analysis of such regularities, languages have been
recently classified according to their degree of gender transparency, which seems relevant in regard to gender
acquisition and processing. Yet, there are certain inconsistencies in determining which languages are overall
transparent and which are opaque. In particular, it is not clear whether some other complex regularities such as
derivational suffixes are also “transparent” cues for gender, what really constitutes an “opaque” noun, or which
role orthography and morphology have in transparency. Given the existing inconsistencies in classifying languages
as transparent or opaque, this work introduces a proposal to assess gender transparency systematically.
Our methodology adapts the standardized factors proposed by Audring (2019) to analyse the relative complexity
of gender systems. Such factors are adapted to gender transparency on the basis of the literature on gender
acquisition and processing. To support the feasibility of such a proposal, the concepts have been instantiated in a
quantitative model to obtain for the first time an objective measure of gender transparency using European
Portuguese and Dutch as instances of target languages. Our results coincide with the theoretically expected
outcome: European Portuguese obtains a high value of gender transparency while Dutch obtains a moderately
low one. Future adaptations of this model to the gender systems of other languages could allow the continuum of
gender transparency to sustain robust predictions in studies on gender processing and acquisition.},
organization = {Axencia Galega de Innovación and Consellería de Economía, Industria e
Innovación, Xunta de Galicia (ED431B 2019/2020; ED431B 2022/19)},
organization = {Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2019-110583GBI00)},
organization = {Foundation for Science and
Technology (FCT) through the Portuguese State Budget (Ref.: UIDB/
PSI/01662/2020) and grant PD/BD/52396-2013.},
organization = {Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria, Xunta de Galicia (ED481B-2022-041)},
organization = {Goethe Universität Frankfurt through the Postdoc Förderprogramm Fokus A|B},
organization = {FEDER Junta de Andalucía-Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades/ project E-SEJ-754-UGR20},
publisher = {Elsevier},
keywords = {Grammatical gender},
keywords = {Gender transparency},
keywords = {Gender acquisition},
title = {A standardized approach to measuring gender transparency in languages},
doi = {10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104236},
author = {Sá-Leite, Ana Rita and Simpson, Ian Craig and Fraga, Isabel and Comesaña, Montserrat},
}