Shiv R. Upadhyay The Sociolinguistic Variation of Grammatical Gender Agreement in Nepali

York University, Toronto
CANADA
upadhyay@yorku.ca

Abstract

The verb of a Nepali sentence agrees with, besides others, the grammatical gender of the subject, following the subject-verb gender agreement (SVGA) rule of Nepali grammar. Drawing on the quantitative and ethnographical approaches, the present study examines the variable use of this rule in Nepali and finds that the subject-verb gender agreement phenomenon is subject to style stratification and sociolinguistic variation. While a group of thirty-four native speakers of Nepali were found to apply the rule consistently in the formal context of language use, they variably used the rule in the informal context of conversational interaction. This study found female speakers leading male speakers in the use of non-standard language form as resulting from the non-application of the SVGA rule. Their lead in the use of non-standard language form, which interestingly is in contrast to a commonly reported finding in many Anglo-American studies of language variation and change, is seen as resulting from their changing social roles and life experience. This study shows that the variable use of the SVGA rule in Nepali can be more adequately accounted for within the ethnographic framework developed in Eckert (1989, 1990, 1991, 2000) and Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1992). This study also identifies another variable phenomenon in which Nepali speakers employ the SVGA rule for the purpose of distinguishing between adult and young female referents, thus suggesting that the traditional gender distinction is changing in perception and its linguistic realization.

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