- Theses and placement reports Faculty of Arts

The influence of animacy,
grammatical gender and biological
gender on regular nouns and
diminutives
a comparison between Hebrew and Dutch
Nathalie Urbanus
s2051184
MA Thesis
Department of Applied Linguistics
Faculty of Arts
University of Groningen
Supervisor:
Dr. H. Loerts
Second reader:
Prof. dr. M.H. Verspoor
Word count: 14.260
June 1st, 2015
Content
List of Tables ......................................................................................................................... III
List of Figures ........................................................................................................................ III
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ IV
Abstract ................................................................................................................................... V
1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Does language shape thoughts? ....................................................................................... 2
1.1.1. Difficulties with language and thoughts ................................................................... 4
1.2. What is gender? ............................................................................................................... 5
1.3. Animacy .......................................................................................................................... 7
1.3.1. Preference for animate/inanimate ............................................................................. 9
1.4. Hebrew Grammar .......................................................................................................... 10
1.4.1. Hebrew diminutives ............................................................................................... 11
1.4.2. Diminutive base nouns ........................................................................................... 12
1.5. Dutch grammar .............................................................................................................. 13
1.5.2. How to make diminutives in Dutch........................................................................ 16
1.6. Current study ................................................................................................................. 18
2. Research questions and hypothesis .................................................................................... 19
2.1. Societal significance ...................................................................................................... 19
3. Method……………………………………………………………………………………20
3.1. Participants ................................................................................................................... 20
3.2 Material ......................................................................................................................... 21
3.2.2 Control items and fillers .......................................................................................... 23
3.3 Procedure ........................................................................................................................ 25
3.4 Statistical analysis .......................................................................................................... 26
4. Results ................................................................................................................................ 27
4.1 Normality test and control items .................................................................................... 27
4.2 Does grammatical gender of Dutch/Hebrew words affect the perception of words? .... 27
4.3 How will diminutives be classified, according to Dutch and Hebrew speakers?........... 28
4.4 What is the influence of animacy and biological gender of the noun? .......................... 30
4.4.2 Animacy and choice of reference picture ................................................................ 31
4.4 Reaction time.............................................................................................................. 33
4.5 Questionnaires ................................................................................................................ 33
5. Discussion .......................................................................................................................... 34
5.1 Does grammatical gender of Dutch/Hebrew words affect the perception of words? .... 35
5.2 How will diminutives be classified, according to Dutch and Hebrew speakers?........... 35
5.3 What is the influence of animacy and biological gender of the noun? .......................... 37
6. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 38
7. Further research ................................................................................................................. 39
References .............................................................................................................................. 41
Appendix I: List 1 and 2, fillers and control items ................................................................ 47
Appendix II: The experiment in E-Prime .............................................................................. 60
Appendix III: Background questionnaire............................................................................... 69
Appendix IV: Responsed questionnaires ............................................................................... 70
List of Tables
Table 1: Overview of Dutch determiners and pronouns .......................................................... 15
Table 2: Rules of diminutives in Dutch ................................................................................... 17
Table 3: Educational background of the participants ............................................................... 20
Table 4: Examples of experimental items ................................................................................ 22
Table 5: Codes per condition ................................................................................................... 23
Table 6: Types of fillers ........................................................................................................... 24
Table 7: Gender and choice of reference picture ..................................................................... 28
Table 8: Choices for diminutives of the Israeli group .............................................................. 29
Table 9: Choices for diminutives of the Dutch group .............................................................. 29
Table 10: Biological gender and choice of reference picture, both groups .............................. 30
Table 11: Choice for animate and inanimate nouns, Hebrew group ........................................ 31
Table 12: Choice for animate and inanimate nouns, Dutch group ........................................... 31
List of Figures
Figure 1: Regular and diminutive labeled pictures .................................................................. 21
Figure 2: Example control item ................................................................................................ 25
Figure 3: Trial set-ups .............................................................................................................. 26
Figure 4: Biological gender and choice of reference picture of the Israeli Group ................... 32
Figure 5: Biological gender and choice of reference picture of the Dutch Group ................... 32
III
Acknowledgements
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to a few people around me, who
helped me in different ways with my MA thesis.
First of all, I would like to thank dr. Hanneke Loerts, my supervisor. Your interest for
my thesis subject helped me so much with this project! Thank you for being so involved, your
patience, the explanations, your time and so important, your enthusiasm.
Secondly, thanks to my mother and my grandmother for helping me set up the
experiment by translating the experiment to Hebrew, for helping me find Israeli participants
and for making this whole experiment run smoothly.
Thirdly, Charlotte and Maaike, thanks for proof-reading (parts of) my thesis for me.
Your comments helped me write a better thesis. I am looking forward to returning the favour!
Finally, thanks to my partner Thomas, for helping me through this entire project, in
both fun and less fun times. Thanks for coming with me to Israel to find participants, for
listening so often to my ideas and helping me when things did not run so smoothly.
To my grandmother:
,‫סבתא יקרה‬
.‫לצורך המחקר שלי חיפשתי משתתפים בישראל‬
.‫ הידע שלך וקשרייך אכן מצאתי אותם‬,‫ התלהבותך‬,‫בזכות עזרתך‬
!‫תודה לך מכל הלב‬
Thanks to everyone who contributed and a warm hug to those who participated in the
experiment!
IV
Abstract
Do speakers of different languages perceive words differently? Recent studies suggest
that language does affect thinking and perception (Bowerman, 1996; Boroditsky et al.,
2003; El-Yousseph, 2006; Winawer et al. 2007). The current study is aimed at testing
these results in two different languages. 52 native speakers of Hebrew and 54 native
speakers of Dutch were asked to connect labeled animate and inanimate pictures with one
of two reference pictures (either male or female, e.g. king or queen). In addition,
diminutives are looked at, to see whether participants from both groups would categorize
these nouns differently than regular nouns. This is because nouns in their diminutive form
can receive a different gender or a different determiner than their original form. In Dutch,
de aap (the monkey) receives the common determiner de in Dutch, while the diminutive,
het aapje (monkey-dim), receives the neuter determiner het. In Hebrew, the determiner
stays the same (ha-), however, the diminutive nouns receive a masculine or feminine
suffix, depending on the gender of the noun (parpar/butterfly – parparon/butterfly-dim).
Lastly, animacy and biological gender will be looked at, to see whether the
animacy/biological gender of the noun influences choice.
Partly in line with the hypotheses, results show that Hebrew participants
categorize regular and diminutive nouns based on grammatical gender, while Dutch do
not. Israeli participants categorized inanimate regular nouns and diminutives based on
grammatical gender, while diminutives in Dutch are perceived as more feminine. Both
languages categorize animate regular nouns based on the biological gender of the noun,
which suggests that animacy has an influence on perception of words.
Key words: linguistics, grammatical gender, Hebrew, Dutch, diminutive
V
1. Introduction
The concept of grammatical gender is one of the biggest challenges when learning a language
that makes use of gender, especially if one’s own language does not feature grammatical
gender. For example, in English, only one determiner is used: the (El-Yousseph, 2006). Only
few exceptions can be made, such as referring to ships as she and referring to inanimate
objects using the pronoun it. When an English native speaker would want to learn Russian,
German, Spanish or Italian, s/he will be confronted with grammatical gender throughout the
entire language and would have to learn this new concept.
Languages differ to which elements in a sentence must be gender marked (e.g. articles,
pronouns, adjectives, verbs) (Gollan & Frost, 2001). For fluent speech production, it is
important that quick access to the correct grammatical gender takes place.
When I asked my Israeli mother (who also speaks Dutch) about grammatical gender in
Hebrew, she had an example right away: Dutch speakers rarely name or refer to objects by
their grammatical gender. When my mother waits for a train and it is late, she asks someone:
‘when will she be here?’, because in Hebrew, train is a feminine word. In Hebrew, it is
normal to name objects and refer to them by their grammatical gender. In Dutch, both
masculine and feminine nouns are preceded by the determiner de, so often speakers of Dutch
do not know which gender a word has. Most nouns are referred to as masculine: ‘zie jij de
trein al?’ ‘Ja, daar komt hij al’ (‘do you see the train yet?’ ‘Yes, there he is already’).
However, there are some feminine words that Dutch speakers are aware of and refer to as
such (e.g. het bedrijf en haar personeel – ‘the company and her employees’). So, Hebrew
speakers reference to nouns using the gender of that noun, because Hebrew distinguishes
between masculine and feminine gender of the noun whereas Dutch speakers, in general, do
not. In Dutch, diminutives are often used when referring to a women. For example, you can
say collegaatje (colleague-dim), or vriendinnetje (female friend-dim). When Dutch adults say
this, they mean a female-colleague, or a female-friend. They do not, or not quite as often, use
a diminutive to refer to a male-colleague of a male-friend.
This thesis builds upon a series of psycholinguistic experiments conducted by
Boroditsky, Schmidt and Phillips (2003) and El-Yousseph (2006). The goal is to explore the
extent to which grammatical gender in languages influences the way people perceive and
categorize words of their native language, looking at regular nouns, diminutives and the role
of animacy of the nouns. In addition, this study is aimed to reveal whether people make
1
choices based on grammatical or biological gender of a noun, or based on cultural and
semantic knowledge.
In the next sections, whether language shapes thought will be discussed first, what
gender is and what the role of animacy of the nouns is. After that, both an overview of
Hebrew and Dutch grammar, including diminutives, will be explained. Lastly, the current
study and the research questions will be discussed.
1.1. Does language shape thoughts?
Speakers of different languages add meaning to their words and sentences in different ways.
For example, the sentence “the elephant ate the peanuts”, seems informative and quite simple.
In English, it is clear that the event happened in the past (Boroditsky et al., 2003). In
Mandarin, however, the timing of the event would not be included in the verb. Native
speakers of Turkish would specify whether the event was witnessed or hearsay. In Russian,
the sentence carries information about the sex of the elephant (only in past tense) and whether
it ate all the peanuts or just a portion of them (Boroditsky et al., 2003). In short, this example
shows that languages differ in the manner of adding information to their words and sentences.
A question that arises is the following: does language influence the way we think? The
idea that thought is shaped by language is associated with Edward Sapir and his student
Benjamin Lee Whorf, one of the first researchers to investigate this interesting idea. Whorf
(1956) proposed that the categories and distinctions of different languages influence the way
the speaker of that language thinks. Nowadays, his ideas are known as the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis, or as the linguistic relativity principle. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that
“users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types
of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence
are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world"
(Whorf, 1956:221). In other words, one's cognitive representations may be affected by the
language that he or she uses. Researchers have tried to find evidence to support the
hypothesis, where some studies did (Boroditsky, 1999; Bowerman, 1996) and others did not
(Heider, 1972; Li & Gleitman, 2002). Both evidence in support of the hypothesis as well as
evidence that did not support the theories will be discussed later on in this chapter.
Knowing this, an interesting question is how grammatical gender could affect
representation. It might be that, when learning a language, people focus on properties of the
noun. For example, if the word for sun is masculine in one language, one might try to
remember manly terms with it (e.g. powerful, threatening). If in another language the word
2
for sun is feminine, one might remember terms like ‘warming’ and ‘nourishing’ (Boroditsky
et al., 2003). In a study reported by Boroditsky et al. (2003), participants were asked to look at
a list of nouns and write down the first three adjectives that came to mind for each word in
their own language. Half of the participants were native speakers of Spanish, the other half
were native speakers of German. The nouns on the list had opposite gender in the languages.
In other words, if a certain word was masculine in Spanish, it would be feminine in German
and the other way around. Results showed that both the German as well as the Spanish
speakers chose more masculine adjectives for words that had masculine gender in their native
language and more feminine adjectives for words that had feminine gender. For example, the
word bridge is masculine is Spanish and feminine in German. Spanish participants assigned
more masculine adjectives to the bridge, such as ‘strong’ and ‘dangerous’, while German
participants mentioned adjectives like ‘beautiful’ and ‘elegant’. Concluding, it may be that
grammatical gender influenced the way in which the words were perceived.
Another experiment by Boroditsky et al. (2003) tested whether grammatical gender in
a language truly has power over thought. Native English speakers were taught about the
fictional ‘Gumbazi’ language. In this language, a distinction is made between soupative and
oostative. Four male and four female pictures were shown to the participants, along with
twelve inanimate pictures. Participants were taught which would be soupative nouns in
Gumbazi and which would be oosative. Thus, participants would learn that forks, pencils and
ballerinas are soupative, while spoons, pens and boys are oosative. After participants
understood the distinction, the pictures were shown again and they were asked to name
adjectives to describe the objects. The results showed that English speakers produced more
masculine adjectives for oosative nouns and more feminine adjectives to the objects when the
noun was soupative. For example, if a violin in Gumbazi was feminine, adjectives such as
‘artsy’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘curvy’ were mentioned. When the violin was being presented as
masculine, words like ‘difficult’, ‘noisy’ and ‘slender’ were named. This could show that just
differences in grammar is enough to influence how people think about objects. However, it
could be that participants made a strategy based on the semantic information the oosative and
soupative nouns carry. For example, if a spoon and a boy are in one category, it is quite clear
that this category is ‘masculine’. Knowing this, participants could directly link a spoon to
‘masculine’ and therefore name more masculine adjectives when asked.
A study by Winawer, Witthoft, Frank, Wu, Wade and Boroditsky (2007) found that
Russian speakers were faster than English speakers to respond to blue items in a forcedchoice task. Participants would see different shades of blue colored stimuli and had to choose
3
the odd one out. According to Winawer et al. (2007), this task was easier for the Russian
speakers, because in Russian there are two different words for a light and a dark shade of
blue, whereas English does not make that distinction and only has one word for both shades
of blue. In other words, Russians could easier choose the odd one out, because in their
language, there is a distinction between these colors. These findings, next to those of
Boroditsky et al. (2003), could be evidence in support that language shapes, or affects,
thought.
On the contrary, Heider (1972) found evidence that would not support the theory that
languages shapes or affects thought. Heider investigated focal colors. A focal color is a shade
of a certain color category that represents the best example of this category. For example,
most commonly recognized shades between languages are red, green, blue, yellow, purple,
pink, orange and grey. These shades are universally the most linguistically ‘codable’ and
easiest remembered. For Heiders’ investigation, four different experiments were set out. In
the first one, 20 English-speaking students and 10 foreign students had to explain the shade,
value and saturation of these colors. In the second experiment, 23 participants with different
native languages named a sample of focal (commonly recognized shades) and non-focal (not
commonly recognized shades) colors. The third experiment checked whether Dani-speaking
participants (a language without shade names for colors) could equally remember and
recognize focal and non-focal colors. In the last experiment, the Dani-speakers learned names
for focal and non-focal colors in a paired-associates task. The results show that the shortest
names were given to focal colors and these were named most rapidly across languages. Focal
colors were the easiest recognized by both English and Dani speakers, and Dani participants
could remember the names they learned with only few errors. These findings do not support
the findings of Winawer et al. (2007), but suggest that color naming does not differ between
languages and moreover, that language does not shape or affect thought.
1.1.1. Difficulties with language and thoughts
Investigating whether language shapes thought is very difficult and has limitations. Speakers
of different languages are often tested in their native language. Therefore, results can only be
found for that specific language. Another problem is that there is no way to be certain that the
instructions and stimuli are exactly the same in both languages (Boroditsky et al., 2003).
Moreover, participants are always asked to provide judgement on tasks, meaning there is no
right or wrong. This means that participants can create a strategy for completing the task.
When participants understand the task and have a strategy, it can be that they will make a
4
conscious decision to follow the grammatical gender of the nouns of their language, which
could affect the outcome of the investigation.
1.2. What is gender?
The word gender is derived from the Latin word genus, originally meaning class, kind,
variety or sort (Online Etymology). A grammatical gender system divides nouns into different
categories, often masculine, feminine and neuter, depending on the language. Gender gives
insight in how different languages can be: in some languages it is a core feature, while in
many other languages it is absent (Corbett, 2006). In gendered languages, nouns are divided
into different genders, based on the different agreements they take (Corbett, 2006). The
generally accepted definition of a linguistic gender system involves the occurrence of
agreement (Corbett, 1991:4). A language is said to have a gender system if it has at least two
different nominal categories and when it reflects in the behavior of associated words, such as
determiners, possessives, adjectives, numerals, verbs and/or pronouns (Corbett, 1991:1).
Many languages have a grammatical gender system, whereby all nouns have gender.
Many of these languages only assign masculine or feminine gender to nouns, but some also
assign neuter, animacy, vegetative and other more obscure genders (Boroditsky et al., 2003).
Speakers of a language with grammatical gender are required to mark words, modify
adjectives and sometimes even have to agree the verb to the gender of the noun. During
speaking in a language with grammatical gender, speakers often need to refer to a noun with a
definite article (e.g. il and la in Italian), refer to objects using gendered pronouns (e.g. if the
word for train is feminine, one might say: she is late), and alter adjectives or even verbs to
agree with gender of the noun (for example, in Russian, verbs in the past tense must agree in
gender with their subject nouns) (Boroditsky et al., 2003:651).
Zubin and Köpcke (1984) investigated that there are two ways to assign gender to a
noun. In 1991, Corbett extended their work. The first way to assign gender to a word is by
using semantic principles, where the noun’s meaning determines the gender of that noun. For
example, girl in a language with grammatical gender would be a feminine noun. In return, the
noun’s gender can shed light on a word’s meaning. This principle includes natural gender
assignment. The second way is by what is called formal principles. The morphological and
phonological structures of a noun play a part of determining its gender. For example, words in
Italian that end on –o are masculine, words ending on –a are feminine. Formal systems are
always second to semantic systems: there is always a semantic core (Corbett, 1991). The
following example will show this clearly. In Russian, djadja means ‘uncle’. By the semantic
5
principle, the word is masculine. By the formal principle, the word is feminine because it ends
on –a. In cases like this, the semantic rule always succeeds the formal rule.
Some languages have more transparent gender assignment rules. For example,
Bagvalal (a language spoken in southwestern Russia), uses a strict semantic gender
assignment. Nouns denoting male humans, and only male humans, are masculine, while
nouns denoting female humans are feminine. All other nouns are neuter. For example, boy is
masculine, girl feminine and a horse neuter (Kibrik, Kazenin, Ljutikova & Tatevosov, 2001).
No information about the form of a noun is needed to determine its gender. Many other
languages do not have such clear semantic assignment rules, such as French and German
(Corbett, 2006).
When assigning gender to words, it could be that speakers of a language looked at
whether the word referred to a person or an item: the origin of gender can often be found in
the meaning of the word. In addition, some creatures and objects received gender based on
similarities with objects in nature. Brill (1871), a Dutch linguist from the nineteenth century,
describes it as follows: masculine words are often the names of the high and robust trees,
feminine words are often names that are finer and smaller shrubs and herbs (semantic
principle). Later on, the form of the word became a tool to assign gender. Words without
suffixes would receive a gender based on ‘origin’ and ‘energy’ (e.g. worp (throw), beet (bite)
have a more masculine energy) (formal principle) (Onze Taal, 2011).
In most languages, gender is assigned according to the original language the word was
loaned from. For example, the French word soleil (sun) is masculine, because the Latin sol is
masculine. Lune (moon) is feminine, like luna in Latin (Onze Taal, 2011). It can be that there
is no connection between a word and its gender. This becomes visible when looking at
different languages, where the same words can have different genders between languages. For
example, the word sun is feminine in German, masculine in Spanish and neuter in Russian.
The word moon is feminine in Spanish and Russian, but masculine in German (Boroditsky et
al., 2003:64). If words are not loaned from another language, they can be classified based on
their biological gender. So is ha’jalda (the girl) a feminine word in Hebrew, and ha’jeled (the
boy) a masculine word. This type of gender is called natural or biological gender. Other
nouns, such as inanimate objects, are not related to this biological gender. For example,
mafte’ax (key) is a masculine word, whereas xagorah (belt) is a feminine word. More details
about Hebrew gender follow in section 1.4.
Van Berkum (1996) points out that there must be some system present which we use
to determine gender, otherwise people would have to learn the gender of each noun
6
separately. Recent studies show that gender is not a completely arbitrary feature, even though
many researchers thought there was “no practical criterion by which the gender of a noun in
German, French, or Latin could be determined” (Bloomfield, 1933:280). Corbett (1991)
showed that in Romance languages the noun’s gender is reflected in the morphology of its
agreement targets as well as in the form of the noun itself. In Spanish, this is based on
phonological aspects: Spanish nouns ending on a suffix –a are mostly feminine: la niña (the
girl), whereas suffix ending –o are often masculine: el niño (the boy). In French, the
relationship is less obvious and based on more abstract rules: e.g. nouns that end with the
suffix –ion generally receive the feminine gender (Foucart, 2008).
In most languages, the feminine gender is associated with the diminutive form of a
noun. This might be because of the existence of common suffixes or because of the
stereotypical view of women being smaller than men (Muchnik, 2014). Furthermore, each
language handles diminutives in their own way. The core meaning of diminutives is childrelatedness (Jurafsky, 1996). Semantically, diminutives mark small or young, while
pragmatically they can mark playfulness, endearment or affection. El-Yousseph (2006)
looked at English and German and found that both languages categorize diminutives as
feminine, even though English does not have a gender system and German does. Because of
these findings, this study will include investigating whether Dutch and Israeli participants
categorize diminutives as feminine. More information on gender and diminutives in both
these languages will be given in section 1.4 and 1.5.
1.3. Animacy
Most languages with grammatical gender use masculine, feminine and sometimes neuter.
However, animacy plays an important role in syntactic and morphological natural language
analysis (Zaenen, Carletta, Garretson, Bresnan, Koontz-Garbode, Nikitina, O’Connor &
Wasow, 2004:118). In some languages, animacy is a separate gender of a noun. For example,
next to the masculine, feminine and neuter gender, there is a further division of gender
between animate and inanimate nouns in e.g. Polish (Loerts, 2012), Basque and Ojibwe
(Franceschina, 2005). However, what is animacy exactly? What is the role of animacy in
sentences and could it influence the perception of nouns?
The word ‘animacy’ comes from the Latin word animus, meaning soul or ghost. In
Dutch, the stem of the word can still be found in different words. Cartoons are called
animated movies and doctors can reanimate someone after a heart attack (Van Bergen & De
Swart, 2008). The distinction between animate and inanimate is not a matter of clear-cut
7
differentiation. However, it is an important distinction to be able to make. Oliver Sacks
(1985) describes a real-life example of a man who could not make the distinction between
animate or inanimate objects, based on visual perception. He did not recognize his wife,
mistaking her for a hat (and attempting to place her head on his own).
Some linguists feel that they know the cut-off point of animate and inanimate nouns.
A reason for this might be because of the following: linguists are humans and they investigate
language from their own point of view, with their own perspective of correct and incorrect
and their own ideas on how to define animacy (Myhill, 1992). Even if this is the case, in
human language, the boundary between animate and inanimate tends to be hazy. This
interference is due to empathy. It is “the speaker’s identification with a person who
participates in the event that he describes in a sentence” (Kuno and Kaburaki 1977:628) that
plays an important role. Whether a linguist (or any human) attributes consciousness to
animals and plants of completely different shapes and forms from him or herself, depends on
his or her empathy with the animals and plants in question (Yamamoto, 1999).
Moreover, not all animate beings are equally animate to human cognition (Yamamoto,
1999). Animacy has gradation: some animate beings are perceived as obviously animate,
while others are as perceived as less animate. For example, a cat is perceived as obvious
animate. Many humans own a cat as a pet and therefore humans have a great empathy for a
cat and thus think of the cat as ‘more animate’ than for example a fish, for which less
empathy is felt.
Fowler (1977:16-17) created a clear definition for animacy, which will be used
throughout this study: “animate beings are capable of initiating actions and change by
conscious or unconscious drive, whereas inanimate beings lack this responsibility. Inanimate
objects lack the power to cause the world to change”. The capability of locomotion is
certainly one of the most fundamental elements of typical animate beings. When looking at
animacy in this light, plants are not perceived to be typically animate. Even though they
continue to grow (blooming, budding, etc.) which also characterizes animacy, but not as
significantly as the capability of locomotion does. Therefore, a cat, a fish and other initiative
things are considered animate, while a plant or a table, lacking initiative and locomotion, are
considered inanimate. In addition, the Russian language knows an ‘animate-rule’. Animate
nouns refer to (or denote) living things who/which breathe and move (Corbett, 1981:59). This
goes from humans beings down to insects. However, microbes are a borderline case and often
treated as inanimate nouns. Plants are always inanimate.
8
1.3.1. Preference for animate/inanimate
The influence of animacy turns up in numerous linguistic choices throughout different
languages. For example, animate nouns are more often chosen as subject in a sentence than
inanimate nouns (Childers & Echols 2004), and typically occur earlier in the sentence
(Branigan and Feleki, 1999). In addition, it has been shown that when an inanimate picture is
shown next to an animate picture, participants prefer to look at the animate picture (Molina,
Van de Walle, Condy & Spelke, 2004). A sizeable body of work has explored children’s as
well as adults’ preference for animate agents (subject) and inanimate patients (object) (De
Villiers 1980, Corrigan 1988, Childers & Echols 2004). For example, Dewart (1979)
investigated children between the ages 6 and 8. They were required to recall a series of
sentences, some with an animate actor and an inanimate acted-upon element and some with
these relations reversed. While hearing the sentence (which was either active or passive), the
children saw a picture of the described situation. Results show that passive sentences with an
animate actor and an inanimate acted-upon would be recalled as active sentences, while active
sentences with an inanimate actor and animate acted-upon tended to be changed to passives in
recall. It appears that in transitive sentences (a sentence that carries both an subject and an
object) with one animate and one inanimate noun, children prefer to put the animate noun first
and this preference affects their choice between passive or active.
These findings, a preference for animate nouns over inanimate nouns, is in accordance
with results found by Branigan, Pickering and Tanaka (2008). Branigan et al. state that
animate nouns are preferably put in the beginning of the sentence, because the concept of an
animate noun is easier accessed than an inanimate one. Language production is incremental
and animate entities are conceptually highly accessible and are therefore retrieved more
easily. Therefore, easy accessed information is processed first. Moreover, because animate
nouns are easier accessed, speakers of different languages prefer animate nouns over
inanimate ones when producing sentences or when having to have to choose between two
pictures.
In other words, animacy could influence the perception of nouns. According to Molina
et al. (2004) and Yamamoto (1999), people would rather look at animate objects than
inanimate ones because they feel empathy for it, which could entail that animate nouns are
perceived differently than inanimate nouns. It is important to know that animate nouns have
the same biological and grammatical gender. For example, ‘women´ will always be feminine,
both in biological as well as grammatical gender. Inanimate nouns, however, cannot have
9
biological gender, because a table or a microwave are not living things. Inanimate nouns can
only have grammatical gender.
1.4. Hebrew Grammar
Modern Hebrew, the language looked at in this study, is also known as Israeli Hebrew,
Contemporary Hebrew and Ivrit. Grammatical gender is inevitable in the structure of Hebrew.
All Hebrew nouns are either masculine or feminine. Adjectives, verbs, pronouns, inflected
prepositions, and other word classes show agreement with the gender of the noun (Tobin,
2001). For example, the next sentence shows clearly how adjectives are affected by the
gender of the noun:
Ha-ugah ha-gdolah
simxah
et
ha-yeladim
ha-ktanim
The cake the large
pleased
d.o. marker
the children
the small
The large cake pleased the small children (Gollan & Frost, 2001:628).
The cake (ha-ugah) is a feminine noun, which has to be in congruence with the adjective large
(ha-gdolah) and verb pleased (simxah), which gives this adjective and verb the feminine
suffix –ah. The next noun, the children (ha-yeladim) is a masculine noun and therefore has
the masculine plural suffix – im, and influences the adjective small (ktanim), which also
receives the masculine suffix –im. This simple and common sentence shows how the gender
of the noun influences the rest of the sentence. This sentence also shows that the definite
article ‘the’ (ha-) is not marked in Hebrew, unlike other gender systems of that of other
languages (e.g. Dutch, Italian, French) (Gollan & Frost, 2001:628).
Generally, masculine singular morphology is unmarked (a lack of suffixes, which is
also called ‘zero suffix’) and feminine morphology is marked, receiving the suffix –ah or –it,
based on phonological information of the noun. For example, an unmarked masculine noun is
sus (horse, stallion) and sus-ah (mare) is the feminine form, adding the suffix –ah. In the
plural form of the nouns, the suffixes –im (m) and –ot (f) are added to the singular stem: susim, sus-ot (Tobin, 2001). Because the masculine form has a zero suffix, it is considered to be
the base of the unmarked form (Tobin, 2001). The gender of human and animate nouns
corresponds with biological gender, while the gender assigned to inanimate nouns is
considered to be arbitrary (Tobin, 2001).
Sometimes, the grammatical gender of a noun is easily accessed, other times it is not.
For example, animate nouns are easier to classify than inanimate nouns, because inanimate
10
nouns have an arbitrary relationship to the meaning of the word. For example, yare’ax in
Hebrew means moon, which is a masculine word. The word levana also means moon, but is a
feminine noun. In most cases, phonological cues make it easier to see the gender of an
inanimate noun. However, these cues are not always reliable and can sometimes be
misleading (Gollan & Frost, 2001:628). For example, most feminine nouns are marked with
the suffixes –ah or –it, masculine nouns are unmarked. Therefore, most Hebrew nouns are
phonologically transparent, based on word form. There are, of course, exceptions, in which
case the word form is in conflict with the grammatical gender rules. The word for bird (tsipor)
and stone (even) are both feminine nouns, even though they do not have a feminine suffix.
The contrary is also possible: tsomet (junction) is a masculine noun with a feminine suffix.
Hebrew does not make use of grammatical markers for animacy. As mentioned earlier, gender
of animate nouns is based on biological gender.
1.4.1. Hebrew diminutives
Diminutive forms in Hebrew are derived from two sources: foreign and native (Hora, BenZvi, Levie & Ravid, 2007). Hebrew diminutive suffixes are mainly derived from languages
with a dominant diminutive system, such as Russian, Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish (Sagi,
1997). Examples of foreign suffixes for diminutives are –uš, –le, –ka and –čik. These can be
attached to both non-native and native bases (Hora et al., 2007). For example, the JudeoSpanish suffix –íko can be attached to the Hebrew noun kof (monkey), which becomes kofiko
(monkey-dim) (Bolozky, 1994). ‘Iko’ is also used to create nicknames. The Russian suffix
–čik can be placed after a foreign word, pónčik (little doughnut, a baby’s nickname) and with
a native-based noun, such as šaménčik (fat-dim) from šamen (fat). These loan diminutive
suffixes are often used to express familiarity, informality and endearment in child-directed
and child-centered speech (Stephany, 1997).
Next to foreign suffixes, two native diminutive suffix forms are present in Hebrew: the
feminine –it (sak / sakit – plastic bag), and the masculine –on (me’il /me’ilon – coat), with a
feminine variant – ónet (kubiya / kubiyónet – small block). Nouns on which the suffixes –it or
–on are placed, express a smaller object or a younger animal. For example, mapa / mapit
(tablecloth / napkin), dégel / diglon (flag / flag-dim), ariyeh / ariyon (lion / lion-dim). For both
objects and animate beings, the use of –it or –on is based on phonological cues of that noun
(Nir, 1993).
Next to adding a suffix to a noun to create a diminutive, reduplication of part of the
base noun is a way of forming diminutives in Modern Hebrew. For example, the diminutive
11
form kalil (very light, easy) is derived from kal (light, easy) (Schwarzwald, 2004).
Reduplication is a morphological process in which parts of the base noun or the whole word is
repeated to the left, to the right, or inside the base. Consonants, vowels and syllables,
morphemes or the whole word can be duplicated. Reduplication makes use of material from
the base itself, instead of joining two morphemes together. Left-to-right reduplication is
generally restricted to diminutives in nouns and adjectives: xatul / xataltul (cat / kitten), kelev
/ klavlav (dog / puppy) (Nir 1993). The latter process has a variety of forms: (1) the last stem
consonant can be duplicated (kal / kalil), (2) root components of the noun can be duplicated
(e.g. kidrer (dribble) had the root letters k-d-r-r, which comes from the noun kadur (ball), root
letters being k-d-r), and (3), two consonants can be duplicated (difdef – glance through a
book, root is d-f-d-f, which is extracted from the noun daf (meaning ‘page’) (Nir, 1993). In
addition, diminutives can be stacked to even further diminutize a noun. An extra suffix can be
added to the diminutive form, to both –it and –on as well as reduplicated diminutive forms.
For example, znavnavon (comes from zanav – tail), which is duplicated and has a masculine
diminutive suffix, is tail-dim-dim. The noun barvaz (duck) can also be doubly diminutized, as
well as many other nouns: barvaz-on-čik (duck-dim-dim). Note that this word has the native
suffix –on and the foreign suffix –čik (Nir, 1993).
The feminine suffix –it is the most common suffix for diminutive nouns in Modern
Hebrew, and is mostly perceived as being used for diminutives (Muchnik, 2014). Between
2005-2012, different language courses were taught in Israel, and a survey was handed out to
the students who studied Hebrew language. They are supposed to be aware of the meaning of
the suffix –it. All the students reported that all the –it cases were used for diminutive forms
(Muchnik, 2014), recognizing the meaning of the diminutive suffixes.
1.4.2. Diminutive base nouns
In Hebrew, diminutive nouns are derived from a base noun. For some nouns, however, the
base form already has a diminutive suffix. The base form + diminutive form became accepted
for words on their own. For example, gan means kindergarten, while ganon means nursery
school. The nouns are related, but have a meaning of their own and are accepted in Hebrew
vocabulary. Ganon has a feature of ‘smaller than base form’, but its conventional meaning is
not simply ‘base + dim’ (Bolozky, 1994). Other examples are milon (dictionary), which
comes from mila (word) and še’elon (questionnaire) comes from še’ela (question) (Nir 1993).
Not always is the diminutive form clear and conventional. For example, tiyulon seems to be
based on the word tiyul (hike), so tiyulon would mean a short trip. However, tiyulon means
12
baby stroller. The nouns still have a connection (walking or taking a trip, with a baby,
however), but do have a meaning on their own.
1.5. Dutch grammar
Every language knows verbs and nouns, but not all languages have a clear gender system, or
no gender system at all. In some languages, the gender shows on the noun, while in other
languages, gender becomes visible through the determiner. For example, German knows three
genders, which shows on the determiner and adjective: masculine (der kleiner Mann),
feminine (die kleine Frau) and neuter (das kleines Kind). Romance languages only use the
masculine and feminine gender (Spanish: el and la; French: le and la; Italian: il and la). The
Dutch language knows two definite determiners for a noun: common and neuter. The general
rule is that a neuter noun receives the definite article het, whereas de is used in all other
definite cases (Loerts, 2012). Dutch does not make a distinction between masculine and
feminine nouns, both are preceded by the common determiner de. Only when referring to a
noun, the original gender is made visible for example: de vrouw en haar man (the women and
her husband). This clearly shows that de vrouw (the women) is a feminine noun (Loerts,
2012). When referring to something non-specific, the indefinite determiner een is used. For
example, de hond (the dog) is a specific dog, while een hond (a dog) refers to no dog in
particular. The assignment of the common and neuter gender are generally assumed to be
arbitrary (Kraaikamp, 2010) and in general, there seems to be no semantic motivation why
one noun is common and another noun is neuter (Haeseryn, Romijn, Geerts, De Rooij & Van
den Toorn, 1997).
In Dutch pronominal gender agreement, two types of agreement are found: lexical
gender agreement, (agreement with the lexical gender of the noun as reflected by the form of
its determiner (de or het) and semantic gender agreement (agreement with the properties of
the noun) (Kraaikamp, 2010). The next two sentences show lexical gender agreement with the
definite common determiner de (1) and with the definite neuter determiner het (2):
(1) Ik kocht de
I
auto
bought DET.C car
die
te koop
DEM.M for sale
stond en
wilde hem
was
wanted 3SG.M
and
opknappen.
renovate.
I bought the car that was for sale and wanted to renovate it (Kraaikamp, 2010)
13
(2) Ik kocht het
I
huis
dat
te koop
bought DET.N house DEM.N for sale
stond en
wilde het
was
wanted 3SG.N
and
opknappen.
renovate.
I bought the house that was for sale and wanted to renovate it (Kraaikamp, 2010).
However, it sometimes appears that the pronoun agrees with the properties of the noun, rather
than the lexical gender of the noun (Audring, 2009). Sentence (3) shows an example of an
animate subject and where the pronoun refers to the biological sex of the noun, rather than the
gender of the noun, which is neuter. It is not uncommon for languages to use semantic
agreement with animate referents, which otherwise use lexical gender agreement (Corbett,
1991).
(3) Het
DET.N
meisje ging
snel
girl
quickly to
went
naar school, want
ze
was te laat.
school because 3SG.F was too late
The girl left for school quickly, because she was late (Kraaikamp, 2010).
In addition, pronouns show agreement with both common and neuter nouns. Two simple
Dutch sentences most children learn in school are the following:
(4)
(5)
Het
meisje
dat…
The
girl
that…
De
jongen
die…
The
boy
that…
These two sentences show the most basic agreement between common/neuter and the
pronoun. This way, children can easily remember that with neuter nouns, the pronoun dat is
used, while for common nouns, the pronoun die is used. See Table 1 for more information
about pronouns.
Next to pronouns, adjectives also agree with the noun when it is preceded by an
indefinite determiner. For example, een mooi huis (the beautiful house) versus een mooie
hond (a beautiful dog). The suffix –e is used for both common and neuter nouns for an
14
attributive adjective. Table 1 shows an overview of agreement between common/neuter nouns
pronouns and adjectives.
The Dutch gender system used to be different than it is nowadays. Before the
seventeenth century, Dutch knew four cases: nominative, genitive, dative and accusative.
They were still used in Middle Dutch, but gradually fell out of use in Modern Dutch (van der
Wal & van Bree, 2008). In the seventeenth century, grammarians still tried to teach Dutch
natives how to speak correctly. However, in dialects and day-to-day speech, people spoke
without cases. By the eighteenth century, daily language has lost its case system. It remained
in the written standard, however (van der Wal & van Bree, 2008). In Modern Dutch, some
cases are preserved in fixed expressions (de loop der tijd – over time; het Leger des Heils –
the Salvation Army). Writers use these expressions as a puristic statement, or to make
something sound deliberately archaic (Hendriks, 2010).
Nowadays, the cases are no longer in use and masculine and feminine have collapsed
into the common determiner de. Around 75% of the Dutch nouns are preceded by de, and
about 25% is preceded by the neuter determiner het (Cornips & Hulk, 2006). Dictionaries
often still make the distinction between masculine and feminine nouns within the common
determiner. Dutch does have typical masculine and feminine suffixes for nouns, revealing its
original gender. Masculine words usually end on –aar, –aard, –er and –erd, feminine words
usually end on –heid, –nis, –schap, –ij, –ing or –st (Loerts, 2012). However, these endings are
not as clear as a masculine or feminine determiner or suffix on a noun. In Dutch, there are no
grammatical markers for animate or inanimate nouns.
Table 1
Overview of Dutch determiners and pronouns
Determiners
Common
Definite determiner (article) de
Neuter
het
‘the’
Demonstrative determiner
die (distal, ‘that’)
dat (distal, ‘that’)
deze (proximate, ‘this’)
dit (proximate, ‘this’)
15
Interrogative determiner
Welke
welk
Onze
ons
iederen/elke
ieder/elk
Pronouns
Common
Neuter
Relative pronoun ‘that’
die
dat
Demonstrative pronoun
die (distal, ‘that’)
dat (distal, ‘that’)
deze (proximate, ‘this’)
dit (proximate, ‘this’)
Personal pronoun ‘it’
hij/hem
het
Adjectives
Common/neuter
neuter indefinite singular
Attributive adjective
-e suffix
no suffix
‘which’
Possessive determiner 1PL
‘our’
Collective determiner
‘every’
NB. Dutch gender-distinguished forms. Taken from Kraaikamp, 2010, p2.
1.5.2. How to make diminutives in Dutch
Diminutives in Dutch can be used for nouns (or personal names) and always receive the
determiner het, which is neuter (Van der Toorn-Schutte, 2004). Diminutives in Dutch are
formed by adding one of these suffixes: –tje, –etje, –pje, –kje and –je. Which suffix depends
on the last sound of the word, or on the stress of the word (Onze Taal, 2012). For example,
when a word ends on a nasal sound (m, n, ng) or with an l, and a short vowel precedes it (but
no schwa), the diminutive will be –etje. If one consonant stands before –etje, that consonant
will be doubled. For example the noun spel (game) becomes spelletje, because the word ends
on an l and a short vowel precedes the last consonant (e), so the form –etje must be used. The
consonant also has to be doubled, because only one consonant stand before the suffix.
Another example is the word slang (snake), which becomes slangetje without doubling of the
consonant, because the –ng sound are two consonants at the end of the word and therefore it
does not have to be doubled (Onze Taal, 2012). For more examples and explanation on how
to make a diminutive in Dutch, see Table 2.
16
Table 2
Rules of diminutives in Dutch
Type
Example
Rule
-etje
Leerlingetje
If the word end on –ing and it is preceded by a stessless
(student-dim)
syllable, the ending –etje is used.
Karretje
If the word consists of one syllable, has a short vowel and
(cart-dim)
ends on an ‘r’, it also receives the ending –etje. In addition,
the ‘r’ has to be doubled (see rule in text). This rule also
counts for words that are originally one syllable, but are
composed out of two different words. For example, ‘ster’
(star) is one word, but combined with filmster (movie star),
the diminutive will still the ‘filmsterretje’.
-pje
Bezempje
If the word ends on an ‘m’ with a long sound or a schwa
(broom-dim)
preceding it, or if the word ends on –lm or –rm, the suffix –
pje will be added in a diminutive. For example: bezempje
(broom-dim), wormpje (worm-dim), zalmpje (salmon-dim).
-kje
Puddinkje
If the word has more than one syllable, ends on –ing and the
(pudding-dim)
stress lies on the syllable before –ing, the suffix –kje will be
added. The ‘g’ of the ending of the original word will
disappear. For example: puddinkje (pudding-dim), kettinkje
(necklace-dim). This rule also counts for compounded
words that end on –ing: winterkoninkje (small sort of
flower).
-je
Taartje
When words in pronunciation end on the consonants p, t, k,
(cake-dim)
d, s and f, the suffix will be –je. For example: popje
(puppet-dim), hondje (dog-dim), stadje (town-dim).
17
-tje
Omaatje
When the word ends on a vowel, this vowel will be
(grandma-dim)
duplicated and the word will receive the suffix –tje. For
example: omaatje (grandma-dim), autootje (car-dim).
Leeuwtje
Words where the end sound is ‘j’ or ‘w’ receives the suffix
(lion-dim)
–tje. For example: leeuwtje (lion-dim), kooitje (cage-dim).
Banaantje
Words where the end sound is ‘n’, ‘l’ or ‘r’ that are
(banana-dim)
preceded by a long vowel of a schwa, receive the suffix –
tje. For example: banaantje (banana-dim), lepeltje (spoondim).
Radartje
Words that consist of more than one syllable and end with a
(radar-dim)
short sound and an ‘r’, receive the suffix –tje. For example:
radartje (radar-dim), motortje (motor-dim).
Based on https://onzetaal.nl/taaladvies/advies/verkleinvormen-algemene-regels
1.6. Current study
The current study is based on El-Yousseph (2006), which again is based on Boroditsky et al.
(2003). Boroditsky et al. showed that gender of words may influence perception of nouns to
some degree. El-Yousseph investigated speakers of German and English, where German has a
gender system using determiners and English gender fell out of use during Middle English
(fifteenth century) (Curzan, 2003). The German and English participants were asked to make
similarity judgments about pictured objects under timed conditions. El-Yousseph added
diminutive nouns to test further whether knowledge of grammatical gender would influence
the perception of the participants. Diminutives in German are neuter, but are formed from
masculine or feminine base words. For example, Tröpfchen (drop-dim) has a masculine root
(der Tropfen). El-Yousseph investigated whether German participants would classify these
diminutives as their original gender, or whether these nouns would be considered more
feminine because of cultural associations of ‘smallness’ with femininity (Boroditsky et al.,
2003; Jurafsky, 1994; Muchnik, 2014). Results showed that both English and German
participants linked diminutives more often with feminine reference pictures, even when the
original gender of the word in German was masculine. This means that even though
Tröpfchen has a masculine root, German participants do see this word as being feminine. In
18
addition, English also showed an effect and linked diminutives more often with feminine
reference pictures. However, the effect was not as big in the English group as it was in the
German group. The German participants categorized the regular nouns with their grammatical
gender.
This thesis will partly replicate the study of El-Yousseph (2006), looking at Hebrew
and Dutch instead of German and English. Using E-prime, reaction times and the way
participants categorize pictures will be looked at to see whether the grammatical gender,
biological gender, animacy and diminutive form of a word influences the way the participants
perceive a word.
2. Research questions and hypothesis
The aim of this thesis is to answer the next three main questions:
1. Does grammatical gender of Dutch/Hebrew words affect the perception of words?
2. How will diminutives be classified, according to Dutch and Hebrew speakers?
3. What is the influence of animacy and biological gender of the nouns?
The expectation is that the Hebrew speakers (with a clear grammatical distinction in
masculine/feminine gender for nouns) will show a more clear distinction in classifying regular
nouns than the Dutch participants. The Dutch responses would be more random than the
Hebrew responses, based on the results of El-Yousseph (2006). Secondly, it is expected that
diminutives in both languages will be perceived more often as feminine, also based on results
of El-Yousseph, where both English and German participants categorized diminutives as
being feminine. Finally, the role of animacy and biological gender of the nouns will have an
influence on the responses, meaning that participants of both languages would link animate
nouns (which corresponds with the biological gender of a noun) more often to the
corresponding biological gender and that inanimate nouns would be linked more to the
grammatical gender in Hebrew, but Dutch would show more random responses.
2.1. Societal significance
This study adds to the study of El-Yousseph, in that El-Yousseph found random responses for
English. It is difficult to say whether this is because they do not have a masculine-feminine
distinction (like in German) or whether they think completely differently about nouns because
19
they do not have grammatical gender at all. The current comparison, Dutch versus Hebrew,
would constitute a better comparison because speakers of both languages know that nouns can
be in different categories. These categories, however, differ: Hebrew makes a distinction in
masculine and feminine on the noun and Dutch in common and neuter using the determiner.
Comparing these two will give more insight in the perception of nouns.
3. Method
3.1. Participants
52 native speakers of Hebrew and 54 native speakers of Dutch participated in this study.
The Hebrew group consisted of 21 males and 31 females, their age ranging between
18;10 and 54;04, mean age 28;03. For an overview of both the Hebrew and Dutch
participants’ background in education, see Table 3. All of the participants knew English next
to Hebrew, but some could speak more languages. Most reported extra languages were Arabic
and Russian. Five of the Hebrew participants grew up bilingual (3 Hebrew/Arabic, 1
Hebrew/Russian and 1 Hebrew/Spanish).
The Dutch group consisted of 24 males and 30 females. Their age ranged between
18;11 and 56;10, mean age 27;05. All the participants knew English next to Dutch. In
addition, German, French and Frisian were often reported to be an extra language participants
spoke or understood. One person was a Dutch/Frisian bilingual.
None of the Hebrew or Dutch participants knew the goals of the experiment
beforehand.
Table 3
Educational background of the participants
Degree in…
Hebrew participants
Dutch participants
High school
21
9
Higher vocational education
0
3
Higher professional education
7
11
University
24
31
Total
52
54
20
3.2 Material
Using E-Prime (Schneider, Eschman & Zuccolotti, 2002), stimuli were presented on a
computer display. The items consisted of labeled pictures: either a picture with a regular noun
written below it, (e.g. ‘eend’, duck) or a diminutive (e.g. ‘eendje’, duckling) (see Figure 1).
Each regular noun of the experimental items had a diminutive counterpart. The labels were
provided to make sure participants understood which noun they saw. Nouns were chosen
based on Hebrew gender categories and the Dutch nouns were translated accordingly, taking
the Dutch gender system in consideration: 75% of the Dutch words used in this experiment
are common, 25% are neuter (Cornips & Hulk, 2006). This way, both the Hebrew and Dutch
group would see the same items. The words used for the Hebrew list were basic Hebrew
words, without ambiguous suffixes. Words such as ganon, tsomet and even were not included.
Pictures were black and white line drawings and were selected out of various picture
databases, one by Snodgrass & Vanderwart (1980) and one database by Severens, Van
Lommel, Ratinckx & Hartsuiker (2005). Pictures that could not be found in these databases,
were black and white coloring pictures for children that were found online.
Figure 1. Regular and diminutive labeled pictures
NB. Hebrew example, the word on the left means duck, the word on the right means duckling
The current experiment is to provide insight in both regular and diminutive words.
Therefore, two lists were made per language, counterbalancing the words. For example, if in
list 1 the experimental item was regular (e.g. ‘computer’) then the word would be a
diminutive in list 2 (‘computertje’, computer-dim) and vice versa (see Appendix I).
The lists had the same 40 fillers and the same 20 control items. The experimental
items consisted of 240 labeled pictures: 60 regular words and 60 diminutives in list 1, the
counterbalanced 60 regular words and 60 diminutives in list 2. By counterbalancing the words
21
between the lists, the participants would not be burdened with an intensive experiment and
they could not guess what the experiment was about.
Each list consisted of 60 male words and 60 female words, based on Hebrew gender
and balanced with the Dutch gender system, which means that the translation of the Hebrew
words corresponded with the division of common and neuter in Dutch. In other words, 60
Hebrew words were divided between masculine and feminine nouns, in Dutch, 54 words
would be common words and 14 words would be neuter, according to the 75/25% division in
the Dutch determiner system (Cornips & Hulk, 2006). For examples of the experimental
items, see Table 4.
Each list had a total of 180 items: 40 fillers, 20 control items and 120 experimental
items. 153 pictures of the experimental items were used in both the regular and their
equivalent diminutive condition and 27 pictures were altered in the diminutive condition to
make the picture smaller and cuter (see Figure 1). The fillers (40 items), control items (20
items) and inanimate items (60 items) had the same pictures in both the regular word
condition as well as the diminutive form.
Table 4
Examples of experimental items
Type of experimental
item
Example Target Right reference
picture
Left reference
picture
Regular noun Hebrew
Table
(m)
Football player
(m)
Princess
(f)
Ladybug
(f)
Grandmother
(f)
Boy
(m)
Prince
(m)
Girl
(f)
Egg-dim
(f)
Queen
(f)
King
(m)
Camera
(common)
Grandfather
(m)
Princess
(f)
Book
(neuter)
Girl
(f)
Boy
(m)
Diminutive noun Hebrew Squirrel-dim
(m)
Regular noun Dutch
22
Diminutive noun Dutch
Piano-dim
(neuter)
King
(m)
Ballerina
(f)
NB. In Dutch, all diminutives receive the determiner het. Therefore, only one example is given.
The words are equally divided between male/female, animate/inanimate and regular
word/diminutive. Each condition received a code based on Hebrew and Dutch gender
(male/female, common/neuter), animacy (A or I) and diminutive (code would receive the
letters VW at the end, which stands for ‘verkleinwoord’, meaning diminutive in Dutch) (see
Table 5).
Table 5
Codes per condition
Gender
Animate
Inanimate
Diminutive
M-C / M-N
M-C-A / M-N-A
M-C-I / M-N-I
e.g. M-C-A-VW, M-N-I-VW
V-C / V-N
V-C-A / V-N-A
M-C-I / M-N-I
e.g. M-C-A-VW, M-N-I-VW
NB. M = male, V = female; C = common, N = neuter; A = animate, I = inanimate; VW = verkleinwoord (=dim)
3.2.1 The experiment in E-Prime
The lists were set up in E-Prime (Schneider et al., 2002): list 1 and 2 for Hebrew and list 1
and 2 for Dutch. Each language had two lists, to counterbalance the regular and diminutive
nouns. The items were shown in the participant’s own language. The experiment was
functional on its own, without extra explanation from the experiment leader (see Appendix II
for the explanation slides and lists). The Dutch texts were written by a native speaker, the
Hebrew version was translated by a native speaker of Hebrew. The Dutch words in the lists
were translated by the same native Hebrew speaker.
3.2.2 Control items and fillers
The experimental items (both regular and diminutive words) were presented with the same
reference pictures which show clearly to which gender they belong: queen, king, ballerina,
football player, princess, prince, grandmother, grandfather, girl or boy. These items were
shown per pair, but also mixed with each other. To check whether the participants understood
what was asked of them, these reference pictures were shown as target items, as if they were
experimental items. For example, the labeled picture ‘girl’, had to be linked to either king or
23
queen (Figure 2). The participants were supposed to link the girl to the queen, based on
grammatical and biological gender.
Different types of fillers were presented to the participants. The fillers were based on
categories used in El-Yousseph’s (2006) research. The fillers are only used to distract the
participants from the actual experiment. Labeled pictures from the experimental items were
also used as fillers and as reference pictures, to distract the participants from the actual
experiment (e.g. couch, coat, table). The control items did not serve as reference pictures for
the fillers. All the filler items are inanimate nouns (See Table 6). The fillers did not have a
diminutive counterpart.
Table 6
Types of fillers
Type of filler
Example Target Right reference
picture
Milk
One reference picture is
(m)
semantically unrelated to
the target, the other is
semantically related to target.
All have the same gender.
Left reference
picture
Yoghurt
(m)
Nose
(m)
One reference picture is
semantically related to the
target, the other one is
related to the target by
gender class. Genders are
mismatched.
Apple
(m)
Banana
(f)
Boot
(m)
All pictures have the same
gender and all are
semantically related.
Camera
(f)
Television
(f)
Car
(f)
Sun
(f)
Cloud
(f)
Banana
All pictures have the same
gender, the reference pictures (f)
are semantically related to
each other, but unrelated to
target.
Based on El-Yousseph (2006).
24
Figure 2. Example control item
NB. Example from the Dutch list.
3.3 Procedure
Participants sat in a quiet area with a laptop in front of them. Before the experiment started,
the experiment leader emphasized that the participants had to choose a reference picture as
fast as they could: the first association between the labeled picture and the reference pictures
is important to see whether people interpret the labeled pictures differently. The participant
could start the experiment by pressing the space bar.
First, an introduction slide was shown. Here, the participant was welcomed and s/he
could read the explanation for the experiment. Once the participant had read the explanation,
s/he could press the space bar to continue to the practice round. The participant could now
practice with four different items to see whether they understood what they were supposed to
do throughout the experiment. Two inanimate items were shown (piano and ring) and two
animate items, of which one was a diminutive (beaver and piglet). The same practice list was
used in the experiments for both language groups. After the practice items, another slide was
shown. If the participants had any questions about the experiment, they could ask them at that
moment. After the participant pressed the space bar, the actual experiment started. In total,
180 items were shown, for which the participant had to decide whether the picture better
matched one of the two reference pictures. First, the participant saw a small plus sign which
lasted 1500 ms, then the labeled picture with two reference pictures above it (see Figure 3).
To choose a reference picture, participants could type ‘d’ to choose the left picture and ‘k’ to
choose the right picture. After 90 items (60 experimental items, 20 fillers and 10 control
items), there was a break for however long the participant wanted. S/he could press the space
bar to continue the experiment. The control items, fillers and experimental items were
presented randomly by E-Prime. After the break and the next 90 items, the last slide was
25
shown, thanking the participant for their time. Pressing the space bar would end the
experiment. After the experiment was finished, the participant filled out a questionnaire about
their background, which languages they speak and what they thought the experiment was
about (see Appendix III for the questionnaire and Appendix IV for an overview of the
responses). The experiment took 15 to 20 minutes, depending on how fast the participants
answered.
Figure 3. Trial set-ups
3.4 Statistical analysis
Using the statistical program SPSS (IBM, 2011), the data of the experimental items and the
control items was checked, first to see whether the data is normally distributed and to see if
the participants understood the task. For the first research question, whether grammatical
gender would affect the perception of words, a chi-square analysis was used to see whether
the variables animacy and gender have an influence of the perceptions of regular nouns for
both Hebrew and Dutch. A Wilcoxon Signed Rank test must show whether there are
differences between the responses of both the Israeli and the Dutch participants. Reaction
times of all the participants and differences in categorization of diminutives, the second
research question, are looked at using a chi-square analysis. For the last question, the
influence of grammatical or biological gender, a chi-square analysis will show the results of
the responses of the Israeli and Dutch participants. Lastly, the questionnaires filled out by the
participants will be looked at. These results must show whether participants who mentioned
correctly what the experiment was about score differently than participants who did not see
26
what the experiment was about, using a Wilcoxon Signed Rank test. Furthermore, a chisquare test will reveal whether female participants chose feminine reference pictures more
often and if male participants chose more masculine reference pictures. The significance level
is set at α = 0.05.
4. Results
In this section, the results will be presented per research question, after the normality test and
the control items are briefly mentioned.
4.1 Normality test and control items
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed that the dependent variables (choice of corresponding
reference picture and reaction time) are not normally distributed (p < 0.001), therefore,
nonparametric tests are used.
It was important to test whether the participants understood what was asked of them
during the experiment, which was tested by looking at the scores on the control items. The
control items were the reference pictures queen, king, ballerina, football player, princess,
prince, grandmother, grandfather, girl or boy, shown as target items in the experiment. The
Israeli group scored 85,2% correct, the Dutch group 89,9%. Both groups thus clearly
understood the task.
4.2 Does grammatical gender of Dutch/Hebrew words affect the perception of words?
For Hebrew, gender of the words, masculine or feminine, showed a significant association
with the choice of corresponding reference picture χ² (1) = 7,93, p < 0.01. For both masculine
and feminine words, participants more often linked the words to the corresponding
grammatical gender (see Table 7). The Dutch gender of the word, common or neuter, did not
have an influence on the categorization of nouns, either regular or diminutive χ² (1) = 1,16,
p = 0.282. Table 7 shows that the Dutch participants link about the same amount of items to
both feminine and masculine reference pictures for both common and neuter words.
27
Table 7
Gender and choice of reference picture
Group +
Not linked with corresponding Linked
with
corresponding
grammatical gender
reference picture
reference picture
masculine
1401
1719
feminine
1512
1608
2913
3327
common
2514
2454
neuter
789
723
3303
3177
Hebrew
Total
Dutch
Total
4.3 How will diminutives be classified, according to Dutch and Hebrew speakers?
Israeli participants linked diminutives with female reference pictures in 50,5% of the items,
Dutch participants showed a slightly bigger percentage: 52,8%. Although the Dutch seemed
to link slightly more diminutive nouns to feminine reference pictures, a chi-square analysis
revealed no significant difference between the Israeli and
Dutch group on diminutives
χ² (1) = 2,99, p = 0.084.
For Hebrew, gender of the diminutive words influenced the choice of corresponding
reference picture significantly χ² (1) = 28,12, p < 0.001. Masculine diminutives were more
often matched to a masculine reference picture, while feminine diminutives were more often
linked to a feminine reference picture. Gender of the Dutch diminutives did not have an
influence on choice of reference picture χ² (1) = 2,71, p < 0.100.
When looking at the overall choices made for diminutives for the Israeli and Dutch
group separately, the Israeli participants link diminutive nouns quite evenly between
masculine and feminine reference pictures (see total in Table 8) χ² (1) = 0,51, p = 0,474. The
results of the Dutch participants did show a significant difference χ² (1) = 10,22, p = 0.001
28
(based on total in Table 9). This significant results is caused by the fact that inanimate
diminutive nouns are more often linked to feminine reference pictures by Dutch natives.
Table 8
Choices for diminutives of the Israeli group
Linked to masculine
Linked to feminine
reference picture
reference picture
Animate word
854
706
Inanimate word
686
874
Total
1540
1580
Masculine word
844
716
Feminine word
696
864
Total
1540
1580
Table 9
Choices for diminutives of the Dutch group
Linked to masculine
Linked to feminine
reference picture
reference picture
Animate word
844
776
Inanimate word
685
935
Total
1529
1711
Common word
1192
1292
Neuter word
337
419
Total
1529
1711
NB. Common and neuter are the original genders of the word.
29
4.4 What is the influence of animacy and biological gender of the noun?
This section will look at the relation between animacy, biological gender of the words and
choices made between the reference pictures. Biological gender is based on gender of the
Hebrew words. The Dutch group is taken as a control group. Therefore, both regular words
and diminutives from the two groups will be looked at. Remember that biological gender is
the same as the grammatical gender of animate nouns.
4.4.1 Biological gender and choice of reference picture
When looking at biological gender and choice of reference picture, both the Israeli
participants as well as the Dutch participants linked animate nouns more often to the reference
picture with the corresponding biological gender. Table 10 shows that both groups linked
animate nouns roughly as often to the corresponding picture with the corresponding
grammatical gender. No significant differences were found between Dutch and Hebrew for
the nouns not linked to biological gender χ² (1) = 0.139, p = 0.709 and the nouns that were
linked to biological gender χ² (1) = 0,464 , p = 0.496.
Table 10
Biological gender and choice of reference picture, both groups
Not linked to reference picture with
Linked to reference picture with
biological gender
biological gender
Hebrew
1394
1726
Dutch
1565
1675
For the Hebrew results, a chi-square analysis revealed that the association between
animacy
and
choice
of
corresponding
reference
picture
was
significant
χ² (1) = 10,06, p < 0.05. This significant result was caused because the animate words were
more often linked to the reference picture that corresponded with the grammatical gender of
that noun, while the choice of corresponding reference picture of the inanimate words seems
more at chance level (see Table 11).
The Dutch group also showed a significant result χ² (1) = 18,48, p < 0.01. However,
the choice for reference picture for animate nouns seems to be at chance level, while
inanimate nouns are more often not linked with the corresponding reference picture. (Table
12).
30
Table 11
Choice for animate and inanimate nouns, Hebrew group
Not linked with
Linked with
corresponding reference picture
corresponding reference picture
Animate noun
1394
1726
Inanimate noun
1519
1601
Table 12
Choice for animate and inanimate nouns, Dutch group
Not linked with
Linked with
corresponding reference picture
corresponding reference picture
Animate noun
1565
1675
Inanimate noun
1738
1502
4.4.2 Animacy and choice of reference picture
A Wilcoxon Signed Rank test showed a significant difference between the mean scores of
choice of reference picture on animate and inanimate items in the Israeli group
(Z = -2,823, p = 0.005). When looking at the choice of reference picture for both regular
words and diminutives, the Israeli group linked animate items more often to the
corresponding reference picture (based on biological gender of the noun) than inanimate
items: 34 participants have a higher mean score for animate items. 15 participants have a
higher mean score for inanimate items, and 3 do not show a difference between the mean
scores.
The Dutch group showed the same results: 40 participants linked animate nouns more
often to the corresponding reference picture (Z = -4,806, p < 0.001), 7 participants have a
higher mean score for inanimate nouns and the last 7 participants show a tie between the
scores.
When looking at the Hebrew group separately, the Israeli participants linked animate
masculine words more often with the corresponding biological gender than animate feminine
words χ² (1) = 66,23 , p < 0.001 (see Figure 4). The Dutch group showed the same results as
31
the Israeli participants, even though the Israeli group showed a larger effect (see Figure 5):
animate masculine words were more often linked to its biological gender, while animate
feminine words were not linked to the biological gender of the noun. In total, more nouns
were linked to the corresponding reference picture, which results in a significant result
χ² (1) = 31.25, p < 0.001.
Hebrew group
Animate masculine word
Animate feminine word
976
810
750
584
Not linked to biological gender
Linked to biological gender
Figure 4. Biological gender and choice of reference picture of the Hebrew group
Dutch group
Animate masculine word
862
703
Not linked to biological gender
Animate feminine word
917
758
Linked to biological gender
Figure 5. Biological gender and choice of reference picture of the Dutch Group
4.4.3 Animacy and diminutives
For the Hebrew results, the chi-square analysis showed a significant association between
animacy and the choice of corresponding reference picture of the diminutives
32
χ² (1) = 36,26, p < 0.001. The participants linked animate words more often to masculine
reference pictures, while they linked inanimate words more to feminine reference pictures
(see Table 8).
For Dutch, a chi-square analysis revealed a significant relation between animacy and
choice of corresponding reference picture of the diminutive words χ² (1) = 31,36, p < 0.001.
Animate words were more often linked to masculine reference pictures, inanimate words were
more often linked to feminine reference pictures (see Table 9).
Looking at the mean scores of the diminutives, based on choice of a diminutive linked
with a feminine reference picture, a Wilcoxon Signed Rank test showed both groups had a
higher mean score for inanimate diminutive items than for animate diminutive words
(Z = -6.072, p < 0.001), meaning they more often linked animate nouns to the reference
picture with the same grammatical/biological gender and inanimate nouns to feminine
reference pictures. 74 out of the (in total) 106 participants had a higher mean score for
inanimate diminutive words, 24 had a higher score for animate diminutive words and 8 do not
show a difference in their mean scores.
The Israeli participants showed a bigger difference than the Dutch group: the Israeli
group had 40 participants who had a higher mean score for inanimate diminutives against 11
who scored higher for animate diminutive items and 1 tie (Z = -4.788, p < 0.001). The Dutch
group had 34 participants who linked inanimate diminutive items to feminine reference
pictures, against 13 participants who linked animate diminutive items to feminine reference
pictures, and 7 participants who did not show a difference in their mean scores (Z = -3.802, p
< 0,001).
4.4 Reaction time
A chi-square analysis showed that the Dutch participants reacted significantly faster than the
Israeli participants χ² (1) = 6872.49, p < 0.001. The mean reaction time for the Dutch
participants was 2600 ms and for the Israeli participants 3070 ms.
4.5 Questionnaires
The answers given in the questionnaires were looked at to see whether participants correctly
guessed what the experiment was about. If this was the case, it is important to compare the
participants who did know what the experiment was about to those who did not know the goal
of the experiment, to see whether they performed differently on the task.
33
The last question in the questionnaire was what the participants thought the
experiment was about. In the Israeli group, 20 participants thought it had something to do
with gender. 11 people in the Dutch group mentioned it was something about diminutives.
The Wilcoxon Signed Rank test showed no differences between the mean scores of those who
mentioned something about gender or diminutives and those who did not have a clue what the
experiment was about (Hebrew: Z = -0,243, p = 0.808; Dutch: Z = -0,356, p = 0.722).
In addition, a few participants (both Israeli and Dutch) mentioned in the last question
that they thought the experiment was about whether people chose reference pictures based on
their own gender, meaning males would choose more masculine pictures and females more
feminine pictures. Looking at the Dutch and Israeli participants together, a chi-square analysis
revealed no results for males χ² (1) = 2.35, p = 0.125. Females did show a trend
χ² (1) = 3.65, p = 0.056. However, they linked the nouns more often to the non-corresponding
reference picture. The Dutch participants did not show any effect χ² (1) = 0.51, p = 0.475.
5. Discussion
The goal of this experiment is to find out to what extent grammatical gender in languages
influences the way speakers of that language perceive and categorize nouns. The study aimed
at answering the following questions:
1.
Does grammatical gender of Dutch/Hebrew words affect the perception of words?
2.
How will diminutives be classified, according to Dutch and Hebrew speakers?
3.
What is the influence of animacy and biological gender of the nouns?
It is interesting to assess whether participants of this study use semantic/cultural
knowledge or grammatical gender to categorize words, because there might be a difference in
perception between these two categories. In other words, participants could categorize the
picture of a dress as feminine because women wear dresses (semantic/cultural), or categorize
the picture based on grammatical gender of the word, which may or may not correspond to
the semantic/cultural gender.
This study looked at Hebrew and Dutch, focusing on grammatical gender of both
languages. Participants were asked to categorize labeled pictures with either a feminine or a
masculine reference picture. Hebrew speakers make daily use of grammatical gender of nouns
(feminine and masculine) and therefore, it is interesting to see whether the Israeli participants
34
make use of grammatical gender to categorize nouns. Dutch was added to this study as a
control group, because Dutch has grammatical gender, which shows on the determiners
(common or neuter), but Dutch speakers often do not know whether a noun is feminine or
masculine as these categories collapsed into one common gender. Comparing these two
languages could give insight as to whether there is an influence of grammatical gender on
categorizing nouns. The results will be discussed per question.
5.1 Does grammatical gender of Dutch/Hebrew words affect the perception of words?
For Hebrew, the results revealed that grammatical gender of the word had a significant
association with the choice of reference picture on both regular words as well as diminutives.
In other words, it could be that grammatical gender of the nouns influenced the choice of the
Israeli participants, resulting in the participants linking significantly more nouns to the
corresponding reference picture. The Dutch gender did not influence the Dutch participants in
their choice of reference picture. This is understandable, because in Dutch, the gender of the
word in terms of masculine and feminine is not usually known. Both masculine and feminine
words are preceded by the determiner de.
In addition, the Israeli participants’ reaction time were significantly slower than the
reaction time of the Dutch participants. This might be explained by the fact that Hebrew has
either feminine or masculine nouns, so the Israelis might have to take an extra step before
linking a word with a reference picture, determining for themselves which gender the word
has. Dutch does not make use of this distinction between masculine or feminine, therefore,
they could choose more quickly between reference pictures, because they have no information
of the noun to refer to.
5.2 How will diminutives be classified, according to Dutch and Hebrew speakers?
Previous research showed that diminutive nouns are often seen as feminine, as they are
‘smaller’ and ‘cuter’ than the regular form (Nir, 1993; Muchnik, 2014; El-Yousseph, 2006).
Therefore, this question was added to the current study, to assess whether those results can be
replicated for Dutch and Hebrew.
Looking at the results for both Hebrew and Dutch on diminutives, no significant
difference was found between the Israelis and Dutch participants when looking at whether
they linked diminutives to feminine reference pictures. However, a trend was found, which is
caused by the Dutch participants. They did link significantly more diminutive words to a
feminine reference picture, while the Israeli participants did not (see the total in Table 9 and
35
10). This result might be explained by the fact that the Israeli participants connected regular
as well as diminutive nouns based on the grammatical gender of that noun, while Dutch
participants do not know the distinction between masculine or feminine nouns. In other
words, the Israelis only look at grammatical gender of the noun and do not make an ‘extra’
distinction for diminutives. In Dutch, common nouns receive the neuter determiner het when
they change to diminutives (de hond, het hondje – the dog, the dog-dim). It might be that
diminutives in Dutch stand out more because they receive a different determiner (even though
the determiner is not shown in the experiment). Therefore, diminutives and especially the
neuter gender in Dutch, may be perceived and classified differently than regular nouns in
Dutch.
These results partly fall in line with previous studies. For example, Muchnik (2014)
investigated that students in Israel who took Hebrew courses knew the meaning of the
diminutive suffix –it or –on, whereas Hebrew speakers who did not take the course, might not
see the suffix as being clearly for diminutives. Students who took Hebrew classes could
categorize nouns as being regular or diminutive, based on these suffixes. In the present study,
it was expected that Israeli participants would categorize diminutives as being feminine,
based on ‘smallness’ and ‘cuteness’ of a noun and because the suffixes –it and –on, because
these suffixes are salient cues for diminutives in Hebrew. However, results show that the
Israeli participants did not categorize diminutives as feminine. The confusion might be due to
the fact that some regular nouns in Hebrew already have a diminutive suffix, even when the
word is not a ‘smaller than base form’. Remember the words gan (kindergarten) and ganon
(nursery school) (Bolozky, 1994), mila (word), milon (dictionary), še’ela (question) and
še’elon (questionnaire) (Nir, 1993), which are regular nouns and used as such in Modern
Hebrew. It could be that only people who explicitly took Hebrew courses know and see the
difference between a regular noun with a diminutive suffix and a ‘smaller than base’
diminutive. For people who do not know this difference explicitly, the diminutive just does
not stand out as much as in Dutch. In addition, in Hebrew, the definite article ha– is not
marked and gender is only marked on the noun itself. The definite article ha- is used for all
nouns in Hebrew, both regular and diminutive nouns. In Dutch, on the other hand, 75% of the
words are common and 25% words are neuter (Cornips & Hulk, 2006) and all diminutives
receive the neuter determiner het. In other words, in 75% of the words the common
determiner de switches to the neuter determiner het. Therefore, diminutives could stand out
more and Dutch speakers would recognize the difference, which results in these nouns being
categorized differently.
36
Lastly, the results show that both the Israeli and Dutch participants linked inanimate
diminutive nouns more often with a feminine reference picture than animate nouns. The
reason for this might be that, in both languages, animate nouns have a biological gender (girl
is feminine and boy is masculine, for example) and are easier linked to their corresponding
biological gender. However, inanimate nouns do not have a biological gender and cannot be
categorized as such, these diminutive nouns have to be linked based on something else. It
could be that inanimate diminutives are linked to feminine reference pictures, because they
are perceived as smaller, based on the stereotypical view of women as smaller than men
(Muchnik, 2015). As Scharzwald (2004) stated, diminutives express a smaller object or a
younger animal. Younger animals are generally perceived as cuter than the adult animals, so it
might be that the same thing is happening for inanimate nouns. Thus, a ‘tafeltje’ (table-dim) is
smaller and maybe cuter than a normal-sized table and therefore might be perceived as the
‘smaller than base form’ and because of its smallness (and maybe cuteness), linked to
feminine (Bolozky, 1994; Muchnik, 2015).
5.3 What is the influence of animacy and biological gender of the noun?
The influence of biological gender of the noun is interesting and important to look at, because
it could be that both the Israeli and Dutch participants base their choice for animate nouns on
biological gender of the noun, instead of on the grammatical gender. This question was added
to investigate the difference and influence between biological and grammatical gender of a
noun.
For both languages, animacy of the noun had an influence on the choice for a
reference picture, for both regular and diminutive nouns. When taking a closer look at these
results of biological gender of the nouns and choice of reference picture, both the Israeli and
Dutch participants linked regular animate masculine words more often with masculine
reference pictures than animate feminine words with feminine reference pictures. For both
languages, significantly more animate words were linked with its corresponding biological
gender than inanimate nouns with grammatical gender. Thus, Dutch and Israeli participants
showed the same results when looking at biological gender, even though Hebrew shows to be
influenced by grammatical gender and Dutch does not. Does this mean the participants chose
based on form, or semantic/cultural knowledge? It could be that the participants saw the
nouns as objects of daily use. In other words, it could be that a ball was perceived as
masculine and a dress as feminine, based on stereotypical and cultural knowledge. It can be
that decisions were not (only) based on grammatical gender, but (also) on cultural knowledge.
37
But when is the choice based on cultural/semantic knowledge, and when on
grammatical gender? It could be that objects of daily use would be categorized with the
biological gender of the person using that object. In other words, the associations one has with
these objects. More abstract nouns, such as love or happiness, would be categorized based on
grammatical gender. As mentioned before, a ball would be a toy used by a boy and a dress
would be something a girl would wear. However, even these associations with objects of daily
use do not always have a clear stereotypical background. A television, a radio or a camera are
not explicitly masculine or feminine in a semantic or cultural way, but do have a grammatical
gender in Hebrew and Dutch. The participants’ choice for these words could be based on
grammatical gender of the word or on a memory with these objects in them. For example, it
might be that a mother is often listening to the radio while cooking and the father is always
the one to make pictures of the family on vacation with the camera. In other words, personal
feelings and memories of an object might also have an influence in categorizing nouns.
When looking at both the regular and diminutives in both Hebrew and Dutch, the
participants had a higher mean score for animate nouns than for inanimate nouns. In other
words, animate nouns were more often linked to the corresponding reference picture than
inanimate nouns. This might be explained by the biological gender of a noun, whereas the
biological gender of an animate noun is often clear and the biological gender of an inanimate
noun is not.
6. Conclusion
It was expected that for the first question, the Hebrew speakers would show a better
distinction in classifying nouns than the Dutch participants and that the Dutch responses
would be more random than the Hebrew responses. Looking at grammatical gender of the
noun, the Hebrew speaking participants did make a better distinction in classifying both
animate and inanimate nouns and categorizing them more often to their corresponding
grammatical gender. Dutch participants showed no such distinction. Responses for either
gender, common or neuter, did not differ much from each other.
For the second question, how diminutives would be categorized, it was hypothesized
that both languages would perceive diminutives as more feminine. The results of Hebrew
diminutives showed that they were categorized as if they were regular nouns, based on
grammatical gender, which is different than hypothesized. Dutch however, did show a
distinction and categorized diminutives as feminine. The Dutch results do fall in line with the
38
expectations. An explanation for the Hebrew results might be that the suffixes –it and –on,
which are used supposed to be used to make diminutives for either feminine or masculine
nouns intertwine more and more with regular nouns. It could be that diminutives are no longer
perceived as a ‘smaller than base form’ of the noun, but as a regular noun and categorized
accordingly.
Lastly, the biological gender of the nouns was expected to make a difference in
perception for both languages, because both Dutch and Hebrew can make use of the
biological gender of the noun. Grammatical gender was expected to have an influence on the
perception of the Israeli participants because of the clear distinction between feminine and
masculine nouns, whereas Dutch does not make use of that knowledge. Results show that
biological gender (and therefore animacy) influenced both the Dutch and Hebrew
categorization of nouns. Animate words are linked according to their biological gender, which
is in line with the expectations. Hebrew does categorize inanimate nouns based on
grammatical gender. However, it is important to know that the biological gender of Hebrew
animate nouns is the same as the grammatical gender of that noun. Thus, both Israeli’s and
Dutch participants categorize animate nouns based on biological gender. There is no
difference in perception for animate regular nouns between the languages.
7. Further research
For further research, a number of things are interesting to look at. First of all, for this
experiment, it would be good to see whether the difference between groups on diminutives
could become significant if more people did the experiment. Now, the result was a trend (p =
.084). In addition, would adding the determiner make a difference? In Hebrew, the determiner
ha- does not carry information, but in Dutch it does. How would participants categorize nouns
if they could see the matching determiner?
Next to improvements of this experiment, it would be interesting to look at a language
that uses animacy as an extra gender of the noun, for example Zande, a language spoken in
the Congo. Zande had four grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, animate and
inanimate.
It would be interesting to compare Zande with Vietnamese, a language without
grammatical gender. In addition, it would be interesting to compare a transparent language
with a non-transparent language. For example, in Spanish, gender marking is very transparent.
In general, feminine words end on –a and masculine words end on –o. Spanish could be
39
compared to for example French or German, which has a more opaque gender marking
system.
Lastly, it would be interesting to add abstract nouns to the experiment, such as love,
happiness, and so on. How would participants with different grammatical gender systems
categorize these words? The results of an experiment with both well-known objects as well as
abstract nouns would give more insight in whether participants make use of the grammatical
information the noun gives. However, this experiment did not add these sort of nouns,
because it is difficult to find pictures of these words. Even though the picture would have a
label, it would still be difficult for the participant to understand what noun is shown.
40
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46
Appendix I
This appendix shows list 1 and 2 for both Hebrew and Dutch, the fillers and the control items,
showing the nouns used in this experiment. If in List 1 the noun was regular (e.g. lion), the
same noun would be a diminutive in List 2 (lion-dim) and vice versa.
Dutch and Hebrew words are combined in one list to have a clear overview. The same
nouns are used for both Hebrew and Dutch. The first column, ‘conditie’, shows the code of a
noun. M of F stand for masculine or feminine according to the Hebrew grammatical gender, C
or N stand for Common or Neuter for the Dutch grammatical gender system, A or I stand for
animate or inanimate, VW is short for ‘verkleinwoord’, which means diminutive in Dutch.
The columns ‘target’ show the experimental items in both languages. The letters ‘d’ or ‘k’
were used to choose either the left (d) or right reference picture (k). The last column,
‘correct’, is based on Hebrew gender. The participant choose ‘correctly’ when s/he choose the
corresponding reference picture, based on grammatical gender.
List 1
Conditie
Target NL
M-C-A
Leeuw
M-C-A
Target HB
Gender
HB
Gender
NL
Gender NL
Exp.
Animacy
Ref. 1
Ref. 2
Correct
‫ אריה‬M
C
C
A
Oma
Koning
k
Kangoeroe
‫ קנגרו‬M
C
C
A
Voetballer
Oma
d
M-C-A
Neushoorn
‫ קרנף‬M
C
C
A
Opa
Ballerina
d
M-C-A
Hamster
‫ אוגר‬M
C
C
A
Prinses
Jongen
k
M-C-A
Papegaai
‫ תוכי‬M
C
C
A
Ballerina
Koning
k
M-C-A
Slang
‫ נחש‬M
C
C
A
Koningin
Prins
k
M-C-A
Bever
‫בונה‬
M
C
C
A
Oma
Opa
k
M-C-A
Uil
‫ ינשוף‬M
C
C
A
Meisje
Koning
k
M-C-A
Krokodil
‫ תנין‬M
C
C
A
Koning
Oma
d
M-C-A
Hond
‫ כלב‬M
C
C
A
Koningin
Jongen
k
M-C-A
Stier
‫ פר‬M
C
C
A
Meisje
Koning
k
M-C-A
Panter
‫ פנתר‬M
C
C
A
Prins
Meisje
d
M-C-A-VW
Muisje
‫ עכברון‬M
C
N
A
Meisje
Opa
k
47
‫ פרפרון‬M
C
N
A
Koning
Meisje
d
Egeltje
‫ קיפודונציק‬M
C
N
A
Jongen
Ballerina
d
M-C-A-VW
Eendje
‫ ברבזון‬M
C
N
A
Jongen
Koningin
d
M-C-A-VW
Eekhoorntje
‫ סנאיציק‬M
C
N
A
Prins
Meisje
d
M-C-A-VW
Zwaantje
‫ ברבורון‬M
C
N
A
Voetballer
Prinses
d
M-C-A-VW
Schildpadje
‫ צבון‬M
C
N
A
Opa
Ballerina
d
M-C-A-VW
Katje
‫ חתלתול‬M
C
N
A
Prinses
Voetballer k
M-C-A-VW
Kameeltje
‫ גמלון‬M
C
N
A
Opa
Prinses
d
M-C-A-VW
Tijgertje
‫ נמרון‬M
C
N
A
Ballerina
Prins
k
M-C-A-VW
Aapje
‫ קופיף‬M
C
N
A
Voetballer
Ballerina
d
M-C-I
Mond
M
C
C
I
Meisje
Jongen
k
M-C-I
Oorbel
‫ עגיל‬M
C
C
I
Opa
Oma
d
M-C-I
Ui
‫ בצל‬M
C
C
I
Ballerina
Voetballer k
M-C-I
Hoef
‫ פרסה‬M
C
C
I
Oma
Jongen
k
M-C-I
Tafel
‫ שולחן‬M
C
N
I
Voetballer
Prinses
d
M-C-I
Krant
‫ עיתון‬M
C
C
I
Koningin
Jongen
k
M-C-I
Tent
‫ אוהל‬M
C
N
I
Meisje
Opa
k
M-C-I
Piano
‫ פסנתר‬M
C
C
I
Koning
Ballerina
d
M-C-I
Accordeon
‫ אקורדיון‬M
C
C
I
Jongen
Ballerina
d
M-C-I
Cello
M
C
C
I
Opa
Prinses
d
M-C-I
Harp
‫ נבל‬M
C
C
I
Voetballer
Koningin
d
M-C-I
Fluit
‫ חליל‬M
C
C
I
Meisje
Prins
k
M-C-I-VW
Computertje
‫ מחשבון‬M
C
N
I
Koning
Koningin
d
M-C-I-VW
Jasje
‫ מעילון‬M
C
N
I
Prins
Prinses
d
M-C-A-VW
Vlindertje
M-C-A-VW
‫פה‬
‫צ׳לו‬
48
‫ גרבון‬M
C
N
I
Koning
Meisje
d
Sleuteltje
‫ מפתחון‬M
C
N
I
Opa
Ballerina
d
M-C-I-VW
Stoeltje
‫ כיסאון‬M
C
N
I
Koningin
Prins
k
M-C-I-VW
Briefje
‫ מיכתבון‬M
C
N
I
Voetballer
Meisje
d
M-C-I-VW
Telefoontje
‫ טלפונציק‬M
C
N
I
Ballerina
Prins
k
M-C-I-VW
Viooltje
‫ כינורציק‬M
C
N
I
Oma
Koning
k
M-C-I-VW
Gardetje
‫ מטרפון‬M
C
N
I
Opa
Koningin
d
M-C-I-VW
Oventje
‫ תנורונציק‬M
C
N
I
Meisje
Voetballer k
M-C-I-VW
Flesje
‫ בקבוקון‬M
C
N
I
Ballerina
Koning
k
M-N-A
Kalf
‫ עגל‬M
N
N
A
Jongen
Oma
d
M-N-A
Ganzenjong
‫ אווזון‬M
N
N
A
Oma
Koning
k
M-N-A
Nijlpaard
‫יאור‬-‫ סוס‬M
N
N
A
Prinses
Jongen
k
M-N-A
Paard
‫ סוס‬M
N
N
A
Jongen
Koningin
d
M-N-A-VW
Vogelbekdiertje
‫ ברווזנציק‬M
N
N
A
Koningin
Opa
k
M-N-A-VW
Kuikentje
‫ אפרוחון‬M
N
N
A
Koning
Koningin
d
M-N-A-VW
Schaapje
‫ כיבשונת‬M
N
N
A
Oma
Voetballer k
M-N-I
Boek
‫ ספר‬M
N
N
I
Prins
Prinses
d
M-N-I
Horloge
‫ שעון‬M
N
N
I
Koning
Oma
d
M-N-I
Zadel
‫ אוכף‬M
N
N
I
Prinses
Jongen
k
M-N-I-VW
Broodje
‫ לחמניה‬M
N
N
I
Voetballer
Meisje
d
M-N-I-VW
Paleisje
‫ ארמוןציק‬M
N
N
I
Koningin
Opa
k
M-N-I-VW
Kompasje
‫ מצפנון‬M
N
N
I
Koning
Konigin
d
M-N-I-VW
Wieltje
‫ גלגלון‬M
N
N
I
Meisje
Koning
k
V-C-A
Zebra
‫ זברה‬V
C
C
A
Koning
Prinses
k
V-C-A
Kikker
‫ צפרדע‬V
C
C
A
Prins
Meisje
k
V-C-A
Bij
‫ דבורה‬V
C
C
A
Meisje
Jongen
d
M-C-I-VW
Sokje
M-C-I-VW
49
V-C-A
Giraffe
‫ ג׳ירפה‬V
C
C
A
Prinses
Koning
d
V-C-A
Kwal
‫ מדוזה‬V
C
C
A
Prinses
Jongen
d
V-C-A
Gorilla
‫ גורילה‬V
C
C
A
Koning
Oma
k
V-C-A
Ooievaar
‫ חסידה‬V
C
C
A
Opa
Ballerina
k
V-C-A
Salamander
‫ סלמנדרה‬V
C
C
A
Jongen
Koningin
k
V-C-A
Geit
‫ עז‬V
C
C
A
Meisje
Koning
d
V-C-A
Gazelle
‫ אילה‬V
C
C
A
Meisje
Opa
d
V-C-A
Vos
‫ שועל‬V
C
C
A
Oma
Koning
d
V-C-A-VW
Duifje
‫ יונונת‬V
C
N
A
Koningin
Prins
d
V-C-A-VW
Vogeltje
‫ ציפורונת‬V
C
N
A
Voetballer
Oma
k
V-C-A-VW
Miertje
‫ נמלונת‬V
C
N
A
Ballerina
Opa
d
V-C-A-VW
Kippetje
‫ תרנגולונת‬V
C
N
A
Opa
Ballerina
k
V-C-A-VW
Molletje
‫ חפרפרונת‬V
C
N
A
Oma
Voetballer d
V-C-A-VW
Zwaluwtje
‫ סנוניונת‬V
C
N
A
Ballerina
Prins
d
V-C-A-VW
Wormpje
‫ תולעונת‬V
C
N
A
Voetballer
Prinses
k
V-C-A-VW
Kameleonnetje
‫ זיקונת‬V
C
N
A
Prins
Meisje
k
V-C-A-VW
Koetje
‫ פרונת‬V
C
N
A
Koning
Koningin
k
V-C-A-VW
Ezeltje
‫ חמורציק‬V
C
N
A
Voetballer
Ballerina
k
V-C-A-VW
Olifantje
‫ פילון‬V
C
N
A
Koning
Prinses
k
V-C-A-VW
Wolfje
‫ זאבון‬V
C
N
A
Prinses
Voetballer d
V-C-I
Ring
‫ טבעת‬V
C
C
I
Jongen
Meisje
k
V-C-I
Jam
‫ ריבה‬V
C
C
I
Voetballer
Prinses
k
V-C-I
Boter
‫ חמאה‬V
C
C
I
Jongen
Oma
k
V-C-I
Trompet
‫ חצוצרה‬V
C
C
I
Prinses
Voetballer d
V-C-I
Bank
‫ ספה‬V
C
C
I
Ballerina
Opa
d
50
V-C-I
Vork
‫ מזלג‬V
C
C
I
Voetballer
Ballerina
V-C-I
Trein
‫ רכבת‬V
C
C
I
Prinses
Voetballer d
V-C-I
Camera
‫ מצלמה‬V
C
C
I
Opa
Prinses
V-C-I
Teddybeer
‫ דובי‬V
C
C
I
Oma
Voetballer d
V-C-I
Paraplu
‫ מיטריה‬V
C
C
I
Voetballer
Meisje
k
V-C-I
Rok
‫ חצאית‬V
C
C
I
Meisje
Prins
d
V-C-I-VW
Handschoentje
‫ כפפונת‬V
C
N
I
Prins
Ballerina
k
V-C-I-VW
Tomaatje
‫ עגבניונת‬V
C
N
I
Meisje
Jongen
d
V-C-I-VW
Schoentje
‫ נעלונת‬V
C
N
I
Koning
Prinses
k
V-C-I-VW
Riempje
‫ חגורונת‬V
C
N
I
Ballerina
Opa
d
V-C-I-VW
Deurtje
‫ דלתונת‬V
C
N
I
Opa
Oma
k
V-C-I-VW
Jurkje
‫ שימלונת‬V
C
N
I
Koning
Koningin
k
V-C-I-VW
Lepeltje
‫ כפית‬V
C
N
I
Prins
Meisje
k
V-C-I-VW
Autootje
‫ מכוניונת‬V
C
N
I
Koningin
Jongen
d
V-C-I-VW
Poppetje
‫ בובונת‬V
C
N
I
Meisje
Koning
d
V-C-I-VW
Balletje
‫ כדורון‬V
C
N
I
Jongen
Prinses
k
V-C-I-VW
Spateltje
‫ מריונת‬V
C
N
I
Ballerina
Prins
d
V-C-I-VW
Wolkje
‫ עננציק‬V
C
N
I
Opa
Oma
k
V-N-A
Hertenjong
‫ עופרון‬V
N
N
A
Ballerina
Jongen
d
V-N-A
Lieveheersbeest
‫ חיפושית‬V
N
N
A
Koningin
Prins
d
V-N-A
Zwijn
‫ חזיר בר‬V
N
N
A
Jongen
Meisje
k
V-N-A-VW
Lammetje
‫ טלהציק‬V
N
N
A
Opa
Oma
k
V-N-A-VW
Varkentje
‫ חזרזיר‬V
N
N
A
Prins
Koningin
k
V-N-A-VW
Konijntje
‫ ארנבון‬V
N
N
A
Prinses
Koning
d
V-N-A-VW
Stinkdiertje
‫ סרחנציק‬V
N
N
A
Opa
Oma
k
V-N-I
Ei
‫ ביצה‬V
N
N
I
Oma
Jongen
d
V-N-I
Schrift
‫ מחברת‬V
N
N
I
Koning
Prinses
k
k
k
51
V-N-I
Bad
‫ אמבטיה‬V
N
N
I
Jongen
Oma
k
V-N-I
Mes
‫ סכין‬V
N
N
I
Koning
Ballerina
k
V-N-I-VW
Vuurtje
‫ אשונת‬V
N
N
I
Prinses
Koning
d
V-N-I-VW
Gebakje
‫ עוגונת‬V
N
N
I
Prins
Koningin
k
V-N-I-VW
Bordje
‫ צלחונת‬V
N
N
I
Prins
Prinses
k
Gender
NL
Gender NL
Exp.
Animacy
Ref. 1
Ref. 2
Correct
List 2
Conditie
Target NL
Target HB
Gender
HB
M-C-A
Muis
‫ עכבר‬M
C
C
A
Meisje
Opa
k
M-C-A
Vlinder
‫ פרפר‬M
C
C
A
Koning
Meisje
d
M-C-A
Egel
‫ קיפוד‬M
C
C
A
Jongen
Ballerina
d
M-C-A
Eend
‫ ברווז‬M
C
C
A
Jongen
Koningin
d
M-C-A
Eekhoorn
‫ סנאי‬M
C
C
A
Prins
Meisje
d
M-C-A
Zwaan
‫ ברבורון‬M
C
C
A
Voetballer
Prinses
d
M-C-A
Schildpad
‫ צב‬M
C
C
A
Opa
Ballerina
d
M-C-A
Kat
‫ חתול‬M
C
C
A
Prinses
Voetballe
r
k
M-C-A
Kameel
‫ גמל‬M
C
C
A
Opa
Prinses
d
M-C-A
Tijger
‫ נמר‬M
C
C
A
Ballerina
Prins
k
M-C-A
Aap
‫ קוף‬M
C
C
A
Voetballer
Ballerina
d
M-C-A-VW
Leeuwtje
‫ אריון‬M
C
N
A
Oma
Koning
k
M-C-A-VW
Kangoeroet
je
‫ קנגרוציק‬M
C
N
A
Voetballer
Oma
d
M-C-A-VW
Neushoornt
je
‫ קרנפון‬M
C
N
A
Opa
Ballerina
d
M-C-A-VW
Hamstertje
‫ אוגרציק‬M
C
N
A
Prinses
Jongen
k
M-C-A-VW
Papegaaitje
‫ תוכון‬M
C
N
A
Ballerina
Koning
k
52
‫ נחשון‬M
C
N
A
Koningin
Prins
k
Bevertje
‫ בונהציק‬M
C
N
A
Oma
Opa
k
M-C-A-VW
Uiltje
‫ ינשופון‬M
C
N
A
Meisje
Koning
k
M-C-A-VW
Krokodillet
je
‫ תנינציק‬M
C
N
A
Koning
Oma
d
M-C-A-VW
Hondje
‫ כלבלב‬M
C
N
A
Koningin
Jongen
k
M-C-A-VW
Stiertje
‫ פרון‬M
C
N
A
Meisje
Koning
k
M-C-A-VW
Pantertje
‫ פנתרון‬M
C
N
A
Prins
Meisje
d
M-C-I
Computer
‫ מחשב‬M
C
C
I
Koning
Koningin
d
M-C-I
Jas
‫ מעיל‬M
C
C
I
Prins
Prinses
d
M-C-I
Sok
‫ גרב‬M
C
C
I
Koning
Meisje
d
M-C-I
Sleutel
‫ מפתח‬M
C
C
I
Opa
Ballerina
d
M-C-I
Stoel
‫ כיסא‬M
C
C
I
Koningin
Prins
k
M-C-I
Brief
‫ מיכתב‬M
C
C
I
Voetballer
Voetballe
r
k
M-C-I
Telefoon
‫ טלפון‬M
C
C
I
Ballerina
Prins
k
M-C-I
Viool
‫ כינור‬M
C
C
I
Oma
Koning
k
M-C-I
Garde
‫ מטרף‬M
C
C
I
Opa
Koningin
d
M-C-I
Oven
‫ תנור‬M
C
C
I
Meisje
Voetballe
r
k
M-C-I
Fles
‫ בקבוק‬M
C
C
I
Ballerina
Koning
k
M-C-I-VW
Mondje
‫ פיון‬M
C
N
I
Meisje
Jongen
k
M-C-I-VW
Oorbelletje
‫ עגילון‬M
C
N
I
Opa
Oma
d
M-C-I-VW
Uitje
‫ בצלצל‬M
C
N
I
Ballerina
Voetballe
r
k
M-C-I-VW
Hoefje
‫ פרסונת‬M
C
N
I
Oma
Jongen
k
M-C-I-VW
Tafeltje
‫ שולחנציק‬M
C
N
I
Voetballer
Prinses
d
M-C-A-VW
Slangetje
M-C-A-VW
53
‫ עיתונציק‬M
C
N
I
Koningin
Jongen
k
‫ אוהלון‬M
C
N
I
Meisje
Opa
k
‫ פסנתרציק‬M
C
N
I
Koning
Ballerina
d
‫ אקורדיונציק‬M
C
N
I
Jongen
Ballerina
d
M
C
N
I
Opa
Prinses
d
Harpje
‫ נבלונציק‬M
C
N
I
Voetballer
Koningin
d
M-C-I-VW
Fluitje
‫ חלילון‬M
C
N
I
Meisje
Prins
k
M-N-A
Vogelbekdi
er
‫ ברווזן‬M
N
N
A
Koningin
Opa
k
M-N-A
Kuiken
‫ אפרוח‬M
N
N
A
Koning
Koningin
d
M-N-A
Schaap
‫ כיבשה‬M
N
N
A
Oma
Voetballe
r
k
M-N-A-VW
Kalfje
‫ עגלון‬M
N
N
A
Jongen
Oma
d
M-N-A-VW
Ganzenjong
e-tje
‫ אווזונציק‬M
N
N
A
Oma
Koning
k
M-N-A-VW
Nijlpaardje
‫יאורציק‬-‫ סוס‬M
N
N
A
Prinses
Jongen
k
M-N-A-VW
Paardje
‫ סוסון‬M
N
N
A
Jongen
Koningin
d
M-N-I
Brood
‫ לחם‬M
N
N
I
Voetballer
Meisje
d
M-N-I
Paleis
‫ ארמון‬M
N
N
I
Koningin
Opa
k
M-N-I
Wiel
‫ גלגל‬M
N
N
I
Meisje
Koning
k
M-N-I
Kompasje
‫ מצפנון‬M
N
N
I
Koning
Konigin
d
M-N-I-VW
Boekje
‫ סיפרון‬M
N
N
I
Prins
Prinses
d
M-N-I-VW
Horlogetje
‫ שעונציק‬M
N
N
I
Koning
Oma
d
M-N-I-VW
Zadeltje
‫ אוכפון‬M
N
N
I
Prinses
Jongen
k
V-C-A
Duif
‫ יונה‬V
C
C
A
Koningin
Prins
d
M-C-I-VW
Krantje
M-C-I-VW
Tentje
M-C-I-VW
Pianootje
M-C-I-VW
Accordeon
netje
M-C-I-VW
Cellootje
‫צ׳לונציק‬
M-C-I-VW
54
V-C-A
Vogel
‫ ציפור‬V
C
C
A
Voetballer
Oma
k
V-C-A
Mier
‫ נמלה‬V
C
C
A
Ballerina
Opa
d
V-C-A
Kip
‫ תרנגולת‬V
C
C
A
Opa
Ballerina
k
V-C-A
Mol
‫ חפרפרת‬V
C
C
A
Oma
Voetballe
r
d
V-C-A
Zwaluw
‫ סנונית‬V
C
C
A
Ballerina
Prins
d
V-C-A
Worm
‫ תולעת‬V
C
C
A
Voetballer
Prinses
k
V-C-A
Kameleon
‫ זיקית‬V
C
C
A
Prins
Meisje
k
V-C-A
Koe
‫ פרה‬V
C
C
A
Koningin
Oma
k
V-C-A
Ezel
‫ חמור‬V
C
C
A
Voetballer
Ballerina
k
V-C-A
Olifant
‫ פיל‬V
C
C
A
Koning
Prinses
k
V-C-A
Wolf
‫ זאב‬V
C
C
A
Prinses
Voetballe
r
d
V-C-A-VW
Zebraatje
‫ זברונת‬V
C
N
A
Koning
Prinses
k
V-C-A-VW
Kikkertje
‫ צפרדעונת‬V
C
N
A
Prins
Meisje
k
V-C-A-VW
Bijtje
‫ דבורונת‬V
C
N
A
Meisje
Jongen
d
V-C-A-VW
Girafje
‫ ג׳ירפונת‬V
C
N
A
Prinses
Koning
d
V-C-A-VW
Kwalletje
‫ מדוזונת‬V
C
N
A
Prinses
Jongen
d
V-C-A-VW
Gorillaatje
‫ גורילונת‬V
C
N
A
Koning
Oma
k
V-C-A-VW
Ooievaartje
‫ חסידונת‬V
C
N
A
Opa
Ballerina
k
V-C-A-VW
Salamander
tje
‫ סלמנדרונת‬V
C
N
A
Jongen
Koningin
k
V-C-A-VW
Geitje
‫ עיזונת‬V
C
N
A
Meisje
Koning
d
V-C-A-VW
Gazelletje
‫ אילונת‬V
C
N
A
Meisje
Opa
d
V-C-A-VW
Vosje
‫ שועלון‬V
C
N
A
Oma
Koning
d
55
‫ כפפה‬V
C
C
I
Prins
Ballerina
k
Tomaat
‫ עגבניה‬V
C
C
I
Meisje
Jongen
d
V-C-I
Schoen
‫ נעל‬V
C
C
I
Koning
Prinses
k
V-C-I
Riem
‫ חגורה‬V
C
C
I
Ballerina
Opa
d
V-C-I
Deur
‫ דלת‬V
C
C
I
Opa
Oma
k
V-C-I
Jurk
‫ שימלה‬V
C
C
I
Koning
Koningin
k
V-C-I
Lepel
‫ כף‬V
C
C
I
Prins
Meisje
k
V-C-I
Auto
‫ מכונית‬V
C
C
I
Koningin
Jongen
d
V-C-I
Pop
‫ בובה‬V
C
C
I
Meisje
Koning
d
V-C-I
Bal
‫ כדור‬V
C
C
I
Jongen
Oma
k
V-C-I
Spatel
‫ מרית‬V
C
C
I
Ballerina
Prins
d
V-C-I
Wolk
‫ ענן‬V
C
C
I
Opa
Oma
k
V-C-I-VW
Ringetje
‫ טבעונת‬V
C
N
I
Jongen
Meisje
k
V-C-I-VW
Jammetje
‫ ריבונת‬V
C
N
I
Voetballer
Prinses
k
V-C-I-VW
Botertje
‫ חמאונת‬V
C
N
I
Jongen
Oma
k
V-C-I-VW
Trompetje
‫ חצוצרונת‬V
C
N
I
Prinses
Voetballe
r
d
V-C-I-VW
Bankje
‫ ספונת‬V
C
N
I
Ballerina
Opa
d
V-C-I-VW
Vorkje
‫ מזלגון‬V
C
N
I
Voetballer
Ballerina
k
V-C-I-VW
Treintje
‫ רכבונת‬V
C
N
I
Prinses
Voetballe
r
d
V-C-I-VW
Cameraatje
‫ מצלמונת‬V
C
N
I
Opa
Prinses
k
V-C-I-VW
Teddybeertj
e
‫ דובון‬V
C
N
I
Oma
Prinses
k
V-C-I-VW
Parapluutje
‫ מיטריונת‬V
C
N
I
Voetballer
Meisje
k
V-C-I-VW
Rokje
‫ חצאיונת‬V
C
N
I
Meisje
Prins
d
V-N-A
Lam
‫ טלה‬V
N
N
A
Opa
Oma
k
V-N-A
Varken
‫ חזיר‬V
N
N
A
Prins
Koningin
k
V-N-A
Konijn
‫ ארנב‬V
N
N
A
Prinses
Koning
d
V-C-I
Handschoe
n
V-C-I
56
‫ סרחן‬V
N
N
A
Opa
Oma
k
Hertenjong
e-tje
‫ עופרון‬V
N
N
A
Ballerina
Jongen
d
V-N-A-VW
Lieveheersbeestje
‫ חיפושונת‬V
N
N
A
Koningin
Prins
d
V-N-A-VW
Zwijntje
‫ חזרזיר בר‬V
N
N
A
Jongen
Meisje
k
V-N-I
Vuur
‫ אש‬V
N
N
I
Prinses
Koning
d
V-N-I
Gebak
‫ עוגה‬V
N
N
I
Prins
Koningin
k
V-N-I
Bord
‫ צלחת‬V
N
N
I
Prins
Prinses
k
V-N-I-VW
Eitje
‫ ביצונת‬V
N
N
I
Oma
Voetballe
r
d
V-N-I-VW
Schriftje
‫ מחברונת‬V
N
N
I
Koning
Prinses
k
V-N-I-VW
Badje
‫ אמבטיונת‬V
N
N
I
Jongen
Oma
k
V-N-I-VW
Mesje
‫ סכינון‬V
N
N
I
Koning
Ballerina
k
V-N-A
Stinkdier
V-N-A-VW
Fillers
In the column ‘Conditie’, the code of the filler word can be seen. F stand for Filler. The
numbers 1, 2, 3 or 4 stand for which type of filler (see Table 7). M/V/MVM/VMV stand for
the Hebrew grammatical gender of the target and reference pictures, and C stands for the
Dutch gender common.
Conditie
Target NL
Target HB
Referentie 1
Gender
Gender HB
Gender
HB Ref. 1
Ref. 2
NL
Neus
M
M
C
‫ מיכתב‬Krant
Mond
M
M
C
‫ חלב‬Yoghurt
Referentie 2
F-1-M-C
Melk
F-1-M-C
Brief
F-1-M-C
Selderij
‫ סלרי‬Sla
Tafel
M
M
C
F-1-M-C
Kool
‫ כרוב‬Aubergine
Tent
M
M
C
F-1-M-C
Helikopter
Jas
M
M
C
F-1-V-C
Jam
Trein
V
V
C
F-1-V-C
Prei
Bank
V
V
C
F-1-V-C
Schoen
‫ נעל‬Riem
Trompet
V
V
C
F-1-V-C
Boot
‫ סירה‬Kano
Tomaat
V
V
C
F-1-V-C
Banaan
‫ בננה‬Appel
Zon
V
V
C
F-2-MVM-C
Sinaasappel
‫ תפוז‬Mandarijn
Sandaal
M
M
C
‫ הליקופטר‬Propellor
‫ ריבה‬Boter
‫ כרשה‬Pompoen
57
F-2-MVM-C
Appel
‫ תפוח‬Banaan
Laars
M
M
C
F-2-MVM-C
Ananas
‫ אננס‬Tomaat
Broek
M
M
C
F-2-MVM-C
Aardbei
‫ תות‬Vijg
Onderbroek
M
M
C
F-2-MVM-C
Artisjok
‫ ארטישוק‬Prei
Kinderwagen M
M
C
F-2-VMV-C
Televisie
‫ טלוויזיה‬Radio
Kaas
V
V
C
F-2-VMV-C
Vinger
‫ אצבע‬Duim
Trein
V
V
C
F-2-VMV-C
Wenkbrauw
‫ גבה‬Mond
Auto
V
V
C
F-2-VMV-C
Boter
Camera
V
V
C
F-2-VMV-C
Bank
Jurk
V
V
C
F-3-M-C
Mandarijn
Sinaasappel
M
M
C
F-3-M-C
Olijf
Ui
M
M
C
F-3-M-C
Computer
Telefoon
M
M
C
F-3-M-C
Jas
‫ מעיל‬Sok
Trui
M
M
C
F-3-M-C
Stoel
‫ כיסא‬Tafel
Kast
M
M
C
F-3-V-C
Pizza
‫ פיצה‬Tomaat
Jam
V
V
C
F-3-V-C
Camera
‫ מצלמה‬Televisie
Auto
V
V
C
F-3-V-C
Trui
‫ סוודר‬Schoen
Riem
V
V
C
F-3-V-C
Tomaat
Boter
V
V
C
F-3-V-C
Mandoline
‫ מנדולינה‬Trompet
Hoorn
V
V
C
F-4-M-C
Jas
‫ מעיל‬Stoel
Tafel
M
M
C
F-4-M-C
Krant
‫ עיתון‬Ui
Prei
M
M
C
F-4-M-C
Sleutel
‫ מפתח‬Piano
Viool
M
M
C
F-4-M-C
Telefoon
‫ טלפון‬Kasteel
Tent
M
M
C
F-4-M-C
Piano
‫ פסנתר‬Krant
Brief
M
M
C
F-4-V-C
Kaas
‫ גבינה צהובה‬Wenkbrauw
Oog
V
V
C
F-4-V-C
Boot
‫ סירה‬Lepel
Vork
V
V
C
F-4-V-C
Prei
‫ כרשה‬Auto
Trein
V
V
C
F-4-V-C
Banaan
‫ בננה‬Zon
Wolk
V
V
C
F-4-V-C
Pizza
‫ פיצה‬Riem
Schoen
V
V
C
‫ חמאה‬Ui
‫ ספה‬Stoel
‫ מנדרינה‬Salade
‫ זית‬Augurk
‫ מחשב‬Radio
‫ עגבניה‬Jam
58
Control items
C stand for Control item, V or M for the Hebrew grammatical gender of the target (v =
feminine, m = masculine).
Conditie Target NL
Target HB
Referentie 1
‫ ילדה‬Koning
Referentie 2
C-V
Meisje
C-V
Oma
C-V
Ballerina
C-V
Prinses
‫ נסיכה‬Ballerina
Voetballer
C-V
Koningin
‫ מלכה‬Prins
Prinses
C-M
Prins
C-M
Voetballer
C-M
Koning
‫ מלך‬Opa
Ballerina
C-M
Jongen
‫ ילד‬Voetballer
Prinses
C-M
Opa
‫ סבא‬Koningin
Prins
C-V
Prinses
‫ נסיכה‬Meisje
Jongen
C-V
Oma
‫ סבתא‬Koningin
Opa
C-V
Koningin
‫ מלכה‬Voetballer
Voetballer
C-V
Meisje
‫ ילדה‬Ballerina
Prins
C-V
Ballerina
‫ רקדנית‬Koning
Ballerina
C-M
Voetballer
‫ כדורגלן‬Oma
Koning
C-M
Prins
‫ נסיך‬Jongen
Ballerina
C-M
Koning
‫ מלך‬Opa
Prinses
C-M
Jongen
‫ ילד‬Voetballer
Koningin
C-M
Opa
‫ סבא‬Meisje
Prins
‫ סבתא‬Meisje
‫ רקדנית‬Opa
‫ נסיך‬Koning
‫ כדורגלן‬Oma
Koningin
Jongen
Oma
Meisje
Jongen
59
Appendix II
Texts used in the E-Prime experiment.
Dutch text
Welkom bij dit experiment.
Tijdens het experiment moet je telkens zo
snel mogelijk
de afbeelding in het midden linken aan één
van de 2
plaatjes bovenaan (links of rechts).
Dit doe je door 'd' in te typen om het
linkerplaatje te kiezen,
en 'k' om het rechterplaatje te kiezen.
Na elk plaatje word je gevraagd om aan te
geven hoe sterk
je het verband vindt tussen de afbeelding in
het midden en
het gekozen plaatje (keuze uit 1-2-3-4-5,
waarbij 1 een zeer
zwak verband is en 5 zeer sterk).
Hebrew text
‫ברוכים הבאים לניסוי‬
‫בניסוי זה עליך להתייחס לתמונה במרכז‬
‫ולשייך אותה לאחת משתי התמונות‬
(‫)בצד ימין או בצד שמאל‬
‫עליך לעשות זאת במהירות האפשרית‬
‫הבחירה נעשית על ידי‬
‫' עבור צד ימין‬k' ‫לחיצה על מקש‬
‫' עבור צד שמאל‬d' ‫ולחיצה על מקש‬
‫לאחר כל בחירה (בין צד ימין או שמאל) הינך‬
‫מתבקש לציין את חוזק הקשר בין התמונה במרכז‬
‫לתמונה שבחרת‬
1-2-3-4-5 ‫הבחירה היא מתוך‬
5 ‫ מציינת קשר חלש ביותר והסיפרה‬1 ‫כשהסיפרה‬
‫מציינת את הקשר החזק ביותר‬
‫לחץ על ׳מקש רווח׳ כדי להתחיל בתרגול‬
Dat was de oefening.
Als je nog vragen hebt,
stel deze dan nu aan
de experimentleider.
‫עד כאן היתנסת בתירגול‬
‫שאלות נוספות ניתן להציג לבוחן‬
‫לחץ על 'מקש רווח׳ כדי להתחיל בניסוי עצמו‬
Druk op de spatiebalk om het
echte experiment te beginnen.
Pauze.
Druk op de 'd' om het plaatje links te kiezen
en 'k' om het plaatje rechts te kiezen.
‫הפסקה‬
5 ‫ מציינת קשר חלש ביותר והסיפרה‬1 ‫כשהסיפרה‬
‫מציינת את הקשר החזק ביותר‬
Druk op de spatiebalk om
weer door te gaan
‫לחץ על ׳מקש רווח׳ כדי להמשיך‬
Dat was het experiment.
Bedankt voor het meedoen!
‫בזה הסתיים הניסוי‬
‫תודה רבה על שנטלת חלק בניסוי‬
60
Practice trial
After the first text, these practice trials were shown. They are the same for both Hebrew and
Dutch.
Target Hebrew/Dutch
Gender HB
Animacy
ImageLeft
ImageRight
Piano
M
I
Koning
Koningin
Bever
M
A
Voetballer
Ballerina
Ring
V
I
Meisje
Jongen
Varkentje
V
A
Oma
Opa
List 1 – part 1
After the practice trial, the first part was shown. These lists are the same for both Hebrew and
Dutch, this is the Dutch example. The Hebrew words can be found in Appendix I.
Condition
Target
Gender Hebrew
Animacy Image Left
Image Right
Correct
C-M
voetballer+w
M
A
oma
koning
k
C-M
prins+w
M
A
jongen
ballerina
d
C-M
koning+w
M
A
opa
prinses
d
C-M
jongen+w
M
A
voetballer
koningin
d
C-M
opa+w
M
A
meisje
prins
k
C-V
prinses+w
V
A
meisje
jongen
d
C-V
oma+w
V
A
koningin
koning
d
C-V
koningin+w
V
A
voetballer
ballerina
k
C-V
meisje+w
V
A
ballerina
prins
d
C-V
ballerina+w
V
A
koning
meisje
k
F-1-M-C
kool+w
M
I
aubergine
tent
d, k
F-1-M-C
helikopter+w
M
I
jas
propellor
d, k
F-1-V-C
schoen+w
V
I
riem
trompet
d, k
61
F-1-V-C
boot+w
V
I
tomaat
kano
d, k
F-1-V-C
banaan+w
V
I
zon
appel
d, k
F-2-MVM-C
ananas+w
M
I
tomaat
broek
d, k
F-2-MVM-C
aardbei+w
M
I
onderbroek
vijg
d, k
F-2-MVM-C
artisjok+w
M
I
prei
kinderwagen
d, k
F-2-VMV-C
boter+w
V
I
ui
camera
d, k
F-2-VMV-C
bank+w
V
I
camera
stoel
d, k
F-3-M-C
computer+w
M
I
radio
telefoon
d, k
F-3-M-C
jas+w
M
I
sok
trui
d, k
F-3-M-C
stoel+w
M
I
tafel
kast
d, k
F-3-V-C
tomaat+w
V
I
jam
boter
d, k
F-3-V-C
mandoline+w
V
I
trompet
hoorn
d, k
F-4-M-C
sleutel+w
M
I
piano
viool
d, k
F-4-M-C
telefoon+w
M
I
paleis
tent
d, k
F-4-M-C
piano+w
M
I
krant
brief
d, k
F-4-V-C
banaan+w
V
I
zon
wolk
d, k
F-4-V-C
pizza+w
V
I
riem
schoen
d, k
M-C-A
bever
M
A
oma
opa
k
M-C-A
uil
M
A
meisje
koning
k
M-C-A
krokodil
M
A
koning
oma
d
M-C-A
hond
M
A
koningin
jongen
k
M-C-A
stier
M
A
meisje
koning
k
M-C-A
panter
M
A
prins
meisje
d
M-C-A-VW
zwaantje
M
A
voetballer
prinses
d
M-C-A-VW
schildpadje
M
A
opa
ballerina
d
M-C-A-VW
katje
M
A
prinses
voetballer
k
M-C-A-VW
kameeltje
M
A
opa
prinses
d
M-C-A-VW
tijgertje
M
A
ballerina
prins
k
62
M-C-A-VW
aapje
M
A
voetballer
ballerina
d
M-C-I
piano
M
I
koning
ballerina
d
M-C-I
accordion
M
I
jongen
ballerina
d
M-C-I
cello
M
I
opa
prinses
d
M-C-I
harp
M
I
voetballer
koningin
d
M-C-I
fluit
M
I
meisje
prins
k
M-C-I-VW
briefje
M
I
voetballer
meisje
d
M-C-I-VW
telefoontje
M
I
ballerina
prins
k
M-C-I-VW
viooltje
M
I
oma
koning
k
M-C-I-VW
gardetje
M
I
opa
koningin
d
M-C-I-VW
flesje
M
I
meisje
voetballer
k
M-C-I-VW
oventje
M
I
ballerina
koning
k
M-N-A
nijlpaard
M
A
prinses
jongen
k
M-N-A
paard
M
A
jongen
koningin
d
M-N-A-VW
schaapje
M
A
oma
voetballer
k
M-N-I
boek
M
I
prins
prinses
d
M-N-I
horloge
M
I
koning
oma
d
M-N-I-VW
broodje
M
I
voetballer
meisje
d
V-C-A
zebra
V
A
koning
prinses
k
V-C-A
kikker
V
A
prins
meisje
k
V-C-A
bij
V
A
meisje
jongen
d
V-C-A
giraffe
V
A
prinses
koning
d
V-C-A
kwal
V
A
prinses
jongen
d
V-C-A
gorilla
V
A
koning
oma
k
V-C-A-VW
duifje
V
A
koningin
prins
d
V-C-A-VW
vogeltje
V
A
voetballer
oma
k
V-C-A-VW
miertje
V
A
ballerina
opa
d
V-C-A-VW
kippetje
V
A
opa
ballerina
k
63
V-C-A-VW
molletje
V
A
oma
voetballer
d
V-C-A-VW
zwaluwtje
V
A
ballerina
prins
d
V-C-I
ring
V
I
jongen
meisje
k
V-C-I
jam
V
I
voetballer
prinses
k
V-C-I
boter
V
I
jongen
oma
k
V-C-I
trompet
V
I
prinses
voetballer
d
V-C-I
bank
V
I
ballerina
opa
d
V-C-I-VW
handschoentje
V
I
prins
ballerina
k
V-C-I-VW
tomaatje
V
I
meisje
jongen
d
V-C-I-VW
schoentje
V
I
koning
prinses
k
V-C-I-VW
riempje
V
I
ballerina
opa
d
V-C-I-VW
deurtje
V
I
opa
oma
k
V-C-I-VW
jurkje
V
I
koning
koningin
k
V-N-A
hertenjong
V
A
ballerina
jongen
d
V-N-A
lieveheersbeest V
A
koningin
prins
d
V-N-A-VW
lammetje
V
A
opa
oma
k
V-N-A-VW
varkentje
V
A
prins
koningin
k
V-N-I
bad
V
I
jongen
oma
k
V-N-I
mes
V
I
koning
ballerina
k
V-N-I-VW
gebakje
V
I
prins
koningin
k
V-N-I-VW
bordje
V
I
prins
prinses
k
List 1 – part 2
The second part was shown after a break.
Condition
Target
Gender Hebrew
Animacy Image Left
Image Right
Correct
C-M
prins+w
M
A
koning
meisje
d
C-M
voetballer+w
M
A
oma
jongen
k
64
C-M
koning+w
M
A
opa
ballerina
d
C-M
jongen+w
M
A
voetballer
prinses
d
C-M
opa+w
M
A
koningin
prins
k
C-V
meisje+w
V
A
koning
koningin
k
C-V
oma+w
V
A
meisje
jongen
d
C-V
ballerina+w
V
A
opa
oma
k
C-V
prinses+w
V
A
ballerina
voetballer
d
C-V
koningin+w
V
A
prins
prinses
k
F-1-M-C
melk+w
M
I
yoghurt
neus
d, k
F-1-M-C
brief+w
M
I
mond
krant
d, k
F-1-M-C
selderij+w
M
I
salade
tafel
d, k
F-1-V-C
jam+w
V
I
boter
trein
d, k
F-1-V-C
prei+w
V
I
bank
kool
d, k
F-2-MVM-C
sinaasappel+w
M
I
sandaal
mandarijn
d, k
F-2-MVM-C
appel+w
M
I
banaan
laars
d, k
F-2-VMV-C
televisie+w
V
I
kaas
radio
d, k
F-2-VMV-C
vinger+w
V
I
duim
trein
d, k
F-2-VMV-C
wenkbrauw+w
V
I
auto
mond
d, k
F-3-M-C
mandarijn+w
M
I
sinaasappel
salade
d, k
F-3-M-C
olijf+w
M
I
augurk
ui
d, k
F-3-V-C
pizza+w
V
I
tomaat
jam
d, k
F-3-V-C
camera+w
V
I
televisie
auto
d, k
F-3-V-C
trui+w
V
I
schoen
riem
d, k
F-4-M-C
jas+w
M
I
stoel
tafel
d, k
F-4-M-C
krant+w
M
I
ui
prei
d, k
F-4-V-C
kaas+w
V
I
wenkbrauw
oog
d, k
F-4-V-C
boot+w
V
I
lepel
vork
d, k
M-C-A
leeuw
M
A
oma
koning
k
65
M-C-A
kangoeroe
M
A
voetballer
oma
d
M-C-A
neushoorn
M
A
opa
ballerina
d
M-C-A
hamster
M
A
prinses
jongen
k
M-C-A
papegaai
M
A
ballerina
koning
k
M-C-A
slang
M
A
koningin
prins
k
M-C-A-VW
muisje
M
A
meisje
opa
k
M-C-A-VW
vlindertje
M
A
koning
meisje
d
M-C-A-VW
egeltje
M
A
jongen
ballerina
d
M-C-A-VW
eendje
M
A
jongen
koningin
d
M-C-A-VW
eekhoorntje
M
A
prins
meisje
d
M-C-I
mond
M
I
meisje
jongen
k
M-C-I
oorbel
M
I
opa
oma
d
M-C-I
ui
M
I
ballerina
voetballer
k
M-C-I
hoef
M
I
oma
jongen
k
M-C-I
tafel
M
I
voetballer
prinses
d
M-C-I
krant
M
I
koningin
jongen
k
M-C-I
tent
M
I
meisje
opa
k
M-C-I-VW
computertje
M
I
koning
koningin
d
M-C-I-VW
jasje
M
I
prins
prinses
d
M-C-I-VW
sokje
M
I
koning
meisje
d
M-C-I-VW
sleuteltje
M
I
opa
ballerina
d
M-C-I-VW
stoeltje
M
I
koningin
prins
k
M-N-A
kalf
M
A
jongen
oma
d
M-N-A
ganzenjong
M
A
oma
koning
k
M-N-A-VW
vogelbekdiertje M
A
koningin
opa
k
M-N-A-VW
kuikentje
M
A
koning
koningin
d
M-N-I
zadel
M
I
prinses
jongen
k
M-N-I-VW
paleisje
M
I
koningin
opa
k
66
M-N-I-VW
wieltje
M
I
meisje
koning
k
M-N-I-VW
kompasje
M
I
koning
koningin
d
V-C-A
ooievaar
V
A
opa
ballerina
k
V-C-A
salamander
V
A
jongen
koningin
k
V-C-A
geit
V
A
meisje
koning
d
V-C-A
gazelle
V
A
meisje
opa
d
V-C-A
vos
V
A
oma
koning
d
V-C-A-VW
wormpje
V
A
voetballer
prinses
k
V-C-A-VW
kameleonnetje
V
A
prins
meisje
k
V-C-A-VW
koetje
V
A
koning
koningin
k
V-C-A-VW
ezeltje
V
A
voetballer
ballerina
k
V-C-A-VW
olifantje
V
A
koning
prinses
k
V-C-A-VW
wolfje
V
A
prinses
voetballer
d
V-C-I
vork
V
I
voetballer
ballerina
k
V-C-I
trein
V
I
prinses
voetballer
d
V-C-I
camera
V
I
opa
prinses
k
V-C-I
teddybeer
V
I
oma
jongen
d
V-C-I
paraplu
V
I
voetballer
meisje
k
V-C-I
rok
V
I
meisje
prins
d
V-C-I-VW
lepeltje
V
I
prins
meisje
k
V-C-I-VW
autootje
V
I
koningin
jongen
d
V-C-I-VW
poppetje
V
I
meisje
koning
d
V-C-I-VW
balletje
V
I
jongen
prinses
k
V-C-I-VW
spateltje
V
I
ballerina
prins
d
V-C-I-VW
wolkje
V
I
opa
oma
k
V-N-A
zwijn
V
A
jongen
meisje
k
V-N-A-VW
konijntje
V
A
prinses
koning
d
V-N-A-VW
stinkdiertje
V
A
opa
oma
k
67
V-N-I
ei
V
I
oma
jongen
d
V-N-I
schrift
V
I
koning
prinses
k
V-N-I-VW
vuurtje
V
I
prinses
koning
d
68
Appendix III
Background questionnaire
Questionnaire
Experiment Code_________________________________________________________
1. Personal Information
Sex:
Male
Female
Date of birth_____________________________________________________________
Native language__________________________________________________________
What is the highest level of education you have completed?
Secondary School
Secondary Vocational Education
Higher Professional Education
University
2. Sociolinguistic Questionnaire
What other languages next to your native language do you speak?
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
How proficient are you in those languages? Please give a number for each of the four skills:
1 = very bad, 2 = bad, 3 = average, 4 = good, 5 = very good
Language:________________Reading:_____Writing:_____Speaking:_____Listening:_____
Language:________________Reading:_____Writing:_____Speaking:_____Listening:_____
Language:________________Reading:_____Writing:_____Speaking:_____Listening:_____
Language:________________Reading:_____Writing:_____Speaking:_____Listening:_____
3. The experiment
What did you think the experiment was about?
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
69
Appendix IV
Information of the questionnaires, filled out by the participants after the experiment.
Hebrew participants
Code
Sex
Date of birth
Native
language
Level of
education
Other
languages
Mean
Language
Proficiency
Thoughts on experiment
1-1
male
28-9-1992
HB
secondary
school
English
4,25
Something with gender
2-1
female
23-9-1992
HB
secondary
school
English
4
Something with gender
3-1
male
20-3-1987
HB
university
English,
Arabic
E: 5, A: 4,5
Stigma's
4-1
female
27-3-1964
HB
hbo
English,
French
E: 5, F: 2,5
Something with gender
5-1
female
22-11-1970
HB
hbo
English
3,25
No clue
6-1
male
1-3-1993
HB
university
English
4
Connecting words with and without
meaning with each other
7-1
female
2-12-1992
HB
university
English
4,5
Connection words with age
(child/adult)
8-1
female
20-4-1971
HB
university
English
4,5
No clue
9-1
female
2-6-1979
HB
university
English
4,25
Gender associations
10-1
female
28
HB
university
English
4,5
Something with gender and
diminutives
11-1
male
4-4-1991
HB
hbo
English
4,5
Left/right brain hemispheres
12-1
female
30-3-1988
HB
secondary
school
English,
Spanish,
Chinese
E: 4, S: 2,5,
C: 2
Connections between words and
objects
13-1
male
8-11-1987
HB
secondary
school
English,
Chinese
E: 4,5,
C: 2,75
No clue
14-1
female
6-2-1990
HB
university
English
4,25
Connection between word and
gender, size, class, age and meaning
15-1
male
9-2-1990
HB
hbo
English
3,75
Connections between different
objects
16-1
male
9-10-1977
HB
university
English,
Arabic
E: 3,75,
A: 2,25
Differences between languages
70
17-1
male
48
HB
university
English,
French
E: 3,5,
F: 2,25
Perception of gender
18-1
male
27-5-1965
HB
hbo
English,
French
E: 5, F: 3
No clue
19-1
female
11-10-1986
HB
university
English,
Spanish
E: 3,75,
S: 1,5
Perception of gender
20-1
female
4-9-1980
HB
university
English
4
No clue
21-1
male
9-11-1992
HB
hbo
English,
Russian
E: 4,25, R: 4 Relation gender with objects
22-1
female
10-12-1992
HB/SP
secondary
school
English,
Spanish
E: 4,25,
S: 3,25
Association between objects
23-1
female
13-12-1987
HB
secondary
school
English
5
Something with gender
24-1
male
19-5-1989
HB
secondary
school
English
4,75
Something with gender
25-1
female
19-9-1993
HB
university
English,
Arabic
E: 4,5,
A: 2,75
Something with suffixes
26-1
male
3-9-1982
HB
university
English,
Arabic
E: 4,25,
A: 1,75
Stigma's, steadiness with choices
throughout the experiment
1-2
male
23
HB
university
English,
Arabic
E: 3, A: 5
No clue
2-2
male
2-4-1992
HB
secondary
school
English,
Spanish
E: 4,25, S: 3
Something with gender
3-2
male
19-11-1995
HB
secondary
school
English,
Arabic,
Italian
E: 5, A:
2,75, I: 2,25
Effects of gender
4-2
female
10-1-1991
HB
secondary
school
English,
Russian
E: 4,5,
R: 3,25
Something with gender
5-2
female
24-6-1991
HB
secondary
school
English
5
Something with gender
6-2
male
14-1-1991
HB/AR
university
English,
Arabic
E: 2,75,
A: 3,75
Stigma's
7-2
female
21-9-1991
HB/AR
secondary
school
English,
Arabic
E: 4, A: 5
Something with gender
8-2
male
31
HB
university
English
3,5
No clue
9-2
male
30
HB
university
English
3,5
Connecting words with and without
meaning with each other
10-2
male
25
HB
university
English
4
Connection words with age
(child/adult)
71
11-2
female
9-9-1984
HB
university
English
5
No clue
12-2
female
28-6-1990
HB
secondary
school
English,
Spanish,
Chinese
E: 5, S: 2,75, Gender associations
C: 3,5
13-2
female
25
HB
secondary
school
English,
Spanish
E: 5, S: 2,75
Something with gender and
diminutives
14-2
male
24-4-1983
HB
university
English,
Spanish,
Japanese
E: 5, S: 4,
J: 2,25
Left/right brain hemispheres
15-2
female
30-3-1978
HB
university
English,
German
E: 5, G: 2
Connections between words and
objects
16-2
female
24-6-1995
HB
secondary
school
English
3,5
No clue
17-2
female
24-6-1971
HB
university
English,
French
E: 4,5,
F: 3,25
Connection between word and
gender, size, class, age and meaning
18-2
female
10-8-1995
HB
secondary
school
English
5
Connections between different
objects
19-2
female
4-8-1960
HB
hbo
English,
Arabic
E: 4,
A: 2,5
Differences between languages
20-2
female
2-4-1986
HB
university
English
3,75
Perception of gender
21-2
female
4-4-1992
HB
secondary
school
English,
Spanish
E: 4,25,
S: 2,75
No clue
22-2
female
24-11-1991
HB
secondary
school
English,
Spanish
E: 4, S: 2,5
Perception of gender
23-2
male
27-7-1992
HB
secondary
school
English,
Arabic
E: 3,5,
A: 1,5
No clue
24-2
female
3-6-1991
HB
secondary
school
English,
Spanish,
Hindi
E: 5, S: 4,
H:3,25
Relation gender with objects
25-2
female
21-6-1991
HB
secondary
school
English
5
Association between objects
26-2
female
19-5-1986
HB
university
English,
Russian
E: 3,75,
R: 1,25
Something with gender
72
Dutch participants
Code
Sex
Date of birth
Native
language
Level of
education
Other
languages
Mean
language
proficiency
Thoughts on experiment
1-3
male
23
NL
university
English
3
No clue
2-3
female
5-1-1989
NL
university
English,
French,
Frisian
E: 4,
F: 2,74
FR: 2,5
Stereotypes
3-3
male
5-10-1988
NL
university
English
4
Something with age
4-3
male
21-1-1900
NL
secondary
school
English
3,75
Relation diminutives and m/f
5-3
male
16-6-1991
NL
hbo
English
4,75
Hierarchy of age
6-3
female
24-7-1992
NL
secondary
school
English
4,5
Age
6-3
male
2-10-1985
NL
hbo
English,
German
E: 5,
G: 3,75
Relation between objects
7-3
female
10-5-1988
NL
university
English
4
Something with diminutives, age
8-3
female
10-8-1990
NL
university
English,
German,
French,
Spanish
E: 5,
G: 3,75
F: 3,25
S: 3
Left/right brain hemispheres
9-3
female
1-3-1987
NL
hbo
English,
Frisian
E: 3,5
FR: 2,75
Stereotypes
10-3
male
15-6-1984
NL
hbo
English
4,25
Whether women choose f and men
choose m
11-3
female
3-2-1958
NL
hbo
English,
Frisian
E: 4,25
FR: 3,25
Making connections between words
and pictures
12-3
female
14-2-1960
NL/FR
hbo
English,
German,
Frisian
E: 4,5
G: 3,5
FR: 4,5
Something with gender
13-3
female
15-8-1993
NL
university
English,
German
E: 3,5
G: 1,5
Association words and age
14-3
female
31-3-1992
NL
university
English,
German,
French,
Norwegian
E: 4,25
G: 2,75
F: 2
N: 2,25
Associations between words
15-3
male
12-2-1989
NL
university
English,
German
E: 3,75
No clue
16-3
female
5-3-1987
NL
university
English,
German
E: 3,75
G: 2,75
Relation between semantic
categories
17-3
male
25-10-1993
NL
secondary
school
English,
German
E: 3,5
G: 4
Speed of connecting words with the
pictures
73
18-3
female
31-10-1992
NL
secondary
school
English,
German,
French
E: 4,5
G: 2,5
F: 2,5
Relation diminutives and gender
19-3
male
21-12-1981
NL
university
English
4,5
Connecting images through
language
20-3
female
25-6-1992
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 3,25
G: 2,25
F: 2,25
Something about diminutives and if
words are m/f
21-3
female
16-7-1992
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 3,25
G: 2,25
F: 1,25
Somthing with diminutives, age,
m/f, semantics
22-3
female
20-12-1991
NL
university
English,
Swedish
E: 4
S: 4
Something with gender
23-3
female
31-12-1990
NL
university
English
4
Semantics
24-3
female
19-2-1994
NL
university
English,
French
E: 3,75
F: 2,5
Association diminutives with age
and gender
25-3
female
7-7-1971
NL
hbo
English,
German
E: 3,75
G: 2,5
Sexism in language
26-3
male
15-6-1966
NL
hbo
English,
German
E: 5
G: 3,5
Associations between what you see
and what you read
27-3
female
25-7-1988
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 4,5
G: 2,75
F: 1,5
Something with gender
1-4
female
17-3-1990
NL
hbo
English,
German,
French
E: 5
G: 2,75
F: 2
No clue
2-4
male
16-11-1991
NL
secondary
school
English,
German,
French
E: 5
G: 2
F: 4
Relation animal/human
3-4
male
17-4-1989
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 4
G: 2
F: 1,75
Connections animate/inanimate, age
4-4
female
2-11-1991
NL
university
English
3,5
Association m/f and words
5-4
male
8-7-1989
NL
university
English,
German,
French,
Japanese
E: 5
G: 2,25
F: 2,25
J: 1,5
Something with gender
7-4
male
21-3-1978
NL
mbo
English,
German
E: 4,75
G: 2,75
Associations gender and picture
8-4
male
19-2-1996
NL
secondary
school
English,
German
E: 3
G: 2,5
Something with gender
9-4
female
16-10-1991
NL
university
English,
German,
Arabic
E: 3,75
G: 2,25
A: 2
No clue
74
10-4
female
15-5-1990
NL
university
English,
French
E: 4,25
F: 2,5
Something with age and m/f
11-4
male
10-9-1992
NL
secondary
school
English,
German
E: 5
G: 2,5
Something with diminutives and age
12-4
female
7-4-1993
NL
secondary
school
English
3,5
Relation diminutives and f/age
13-4
female
21-1-1992
NL
university
English
3,75
Relation diminutives and age
14-4
female
26-12-1990
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 4
G: 3,25
F: 2
No clue
15-4
male
5-10-1984
NL
university
English,
German,
French,
Frisian
E: 4,5
G: 2
F: 1,5
FR: 3
Assiciations m/f and language
16-4
female
22-3-1991
NL
university
English,
German
E: 5
G: 1,5
Something with gender and animals,
objects
17-4
male
16-4-1993
NL
secondary
school
English,
German,
French,
Greek
E: 5
G: 3
F: 3
GR: 1,5
Relation diminutives and f
18-4
female
2-5-1989
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 4,75
G: 2
F: 5
Something with diminutives
19-4
male
30-9-1994
NL
university
English,
French
E: 5
F: 2,75
Something with diminutives
20-4
male
10-6-1990
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 4,25
G: 3
F: 4
Sexism in language
21-4
female
1-9-1989
NL
hbo
English
5
What do you choose when there is
no relation
22-4
male
3-5-1993
NL
mbo
English
3,5
No clue
23-4
female
8-4-1992
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 4,25
G: 3
F: 2,5
Something with gender and
diminutives
24-4
male
9-1-1989
NL
mbo
English,
German
E: 3
G: 2
Perception of words
25-4
male
16-2-1972
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 3,75
G: 2,5
F: 2
Something with gender
26-4
female
22-7-1965
NL
hbo
English,
German
E: 3,5
G: 2,5
No clue
27-4
male
11-6-1959
NL
university
English,
German,
French
E: 4,25
G: 2,25
F: 1,25
Strength of associations
75