Chapter 7. Gender, classifiers, and diachrony in Khasian

Abstract

The Khasian family is striking in exhibiting both grammatical gender and numeral classifier systems, as well as the additional feature of grammatical plural marking within numeral classifier phrases (Rabel 1961; Nagaraja 1985; Ring 2015). Located in the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya in an area well known as a contact zone for cultures and language groups (Chelliah & Lester 2016), this group of lects belongs to the Austroasiatic phylum, but remains separated from their closest relatives by Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman languages. As gender marking in particular is unusual for Austroasiatic languages, it is currently an open question how this system arose. This paper provides a description of the gender and classifier systems in Khasian varieties as well as an initial hypothesis for how gender developed, based on an ongoing research project among the Khasian group.