A HIERARCHY OF POLISH GENDERS Major generative linguistic theories, including Principles & Parameters, Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) and Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG), make crucial use of feature matrices. LFG and HPSG explicitly allow features to have complex values which themselves are feature matrices. HPSG requires further that such feature structures (FSs) be typed, where each type specifies the repertoire of features that a given FS bears, as well as possible values of those features. All types are ordered into a multiple inheritence hierarchy, i.e., a partial order, where subtypes inherit the information introduced by their (possibly multiple) supertypes, perhaps adding new information. The aim of this paper is to show the usefulness, if not the necessity, of the formal apparatus of HPSG feature structures and types to model the morphosyntactic category of gender in Polish: we propose a multiple inheritance hierarchy for the type _gender_ which, among others, reflects various gender syncretisms and gender agreement patterns. In HPSG, the phi-features are represented as FSs of type _index_ illustrated in (1). The values of NUMBER and PERSON are straightforward; e.g., for NUMBER, they are of the atomic (featureless) type _number_, which has two subtypes: _sg_ and _pl_. We argue that the hierarchy for _gender_ is much more complex for Polish and propose (2) (ignore the NUM feature for now). We assume after Mańczak 1956 that there are 5 genders in Polish: virile (_m1_), masculine-animate (_m2_), masculine-inanimate (_m3_), neuter (_neut_) and feminine (_fem_). The need for at least 5 genders is illustrated with examples in (3). Note that three masculine genders are postulated; otherwise, it would be impossible to say, e.g., what the masculine accusative singular (or plural) form of the adjective "mały" is. Moreover, the multiple inheritance hierarchy allows us to capture various gender syncretisms, in particular (cf. (3)): - GENDER of "małego" is _m12_; - GENDER of (the nominative) "mały" and past tense verbs such as "przyszedł": _masc_; - GENDER of the plural "małe": _non-masc-hum_; etc. Saloni 1976 goes further and assumes 9 genders, making the additional distinctions on the basis of accommodation by numerals -- the relevant test environments are given in (4). The additional 4 genders are the result of splitting the neuter gender into n1 (combines with collective numerals, (5a)) and n2 (does not, (5b)), and adding 3 plurale tantum genders: p1 (cf. (5c)), p2 (cf. (5d)) and p3 (cf. (5e)). In our view, accommodation by numerals should not be conflated with gender; on the other hand, it does clearly depend on gender. We represent this situation by the full gender hierarchy in (2), which introduces the feature NUM with values of type _num_, whose subtypes are presented in (6). Those subtypes represent various ways in which nouns can combine with numerals: if they do combine (_accom_), they may either combine with collective numerals (_coll_) or non-collective numerals (_main_); otherwise they bear the NUM value of type _non-accom_. Given the type hierarchies for _gender_ and for _num_ and lexical specifications such as in (7), all facts consider by Saloni are accounted for without the need to conflate gender and accommodation by numerals, and with the by now standard repertoire of 5 genders for Polish. For example, all facts in (5) are a matter of simple agreement of possibly underspecified GENDER values between the numeral and the noun, cf. (8). Additionally, gender syncretisms not dealt with by Mańczak or Saloni are represented here. (1) |index | |GENDER gender| |NUMBER number| |PERSON person| (2) |gender | |NUM num| / \ / \ / \ / \ masc-neut non-masc-hum / \ / \ / \ / \ masc m23neut \ / \ / \ \ / \ / \ \ / \ / \ \ m12 |m23 | \ \ / \ |NUM main| \ \ / \ / \ \ \ / \ / \ \ \ / \ / \ \ \ |m1 | m2 m3 neut |fem | |NUM accom| |NUM main| (3) NOM SG: ACC SG: ACC PL: m1: mały facet małego faceta małych facetów (small guy) m2: mały koń małego konia małe konie (small horse) m3: mały stół mały stół małe stoły (small table) neut: małe okno małe okno małe okna (small window) fem: mała lampa małą lampę małe lampy (small lamp) (4) m1: Widzę jednego albo dwóch spośród tych ___, których lubię. m2: Widzę jednego albo dwa spośród tych ___, które lubię. m3: Widzę jeden albo dwa spośród tych ___, które lubię. n1: Widzę jedno albo dwoje spośród tych ___, które lubię. n2: Widzę jedno albo dwa spośród tych ___, które lubię. fem: Widzę jedną albo dwie spośród tych ___, które lubię. p1: Widzę jedno albo dwoje spośród tych ___, których lubię. p2: Widzę jedne albo dwoje spośród tych ___, które lubię. p3: Widzę (jedną albo dwie pary) spośród tych ___, które lubię. (5) a. pięcioro dzieci (n1) five children b. pięć/*pięcioro okien (n2) five children c. widzę tych wujostwa / dwoje wujostwa (p1) I see those uncles-and-aunts two uncles-and-aunts d. widzę te skrzypce / dwoje skrzypiec (p2) I see those violin two violin e. widzę te spodnie / *dwoje spodni / dwie pary spodni (p3) I see those trousers two trousers two pairs trousers (6) num / \ / \ accom non-accom / \ / \ main coll (7) pięcioro, dwoje: |gender | |NUM coll| dzieci: |neut | |NUM coll| okna: |neut | |NUM main| wujostwo: |m1|, i.e., given (2), |m1 | |NUM accom| (8) "pięcioro wujostwa": |gender | |m1 | |m1 | |NUM coll| + |NUM accom| = |NUM coll| References: Mańczak, Witold. 1956. "Ile jest rodzajów w języku polskim?". Język Polski XXXVI, pp. 116-121. Saloni, Zygmunt. 1976. "Kategoria rodzaju we współczesnym języku polskim". In: "Kategorie gramatyczne grup imiennych we współczesnym języku polskim", Ossolineum, Wrocław.