Système numéral et neutralisation du genre numéral en soureth

This article describes the numeral system in several varieties of Soureth, one of the modern languages derived from the eastern branch of Aramaic, a Semitic language of the Northwest. Historically, it has been spoken in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and southeastern Turkey; and in the diaspora since the early 20th century. After describing the system in general, the article will study a particular phenomenon concerning the gender agreement between the numeral and the counted name. Modern Aramaic, like the classical language, Syriac, has a binary gender marking on the noun (masculine or feminine), which affects the relations of agreement. The numeral system also contains marked masculine and feminine forms that agree with the noun (Coghill 2004 & 2018, Poizat 2008). However, there is a process of gender neutralization of the numeral that occurs (Khan 2009). Indeed, numerals do not always change according to the gender of the name counted. They thus have a single form that could be called a “neutral” form. This paper presents the different uses of numerals in an oral corpus made up with Soureth speakers living in France. Some hypotheses will be proposed in order to analyze the neutralization process which does not exist in an absolute way in all varieties.