Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:32:43.195Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 12 - Grammatical Gender in Modern Germanic Languages

from Part II - Morphology and Agreement Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2020

By
Sebastian Kürschner
Edited by
Michael T. Putnam  and
B. Richard Page
Michael T. Putnam
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
B. Richard Page
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access

Summary

Grammatical gender in modern Germanic languages displays strong variation. Some languages retain three adnominal genders (e.g., German, Icelandic), others reduced the system to two genders, usually by a merger of masculine and feminine gender (e.g., Dutch, Swedish). In English and Afrikaans, adnominal gender is completely lost. Pronominal gender, on the other hand, does not always reflect adnominal gender, and is retained in at least three genders in all Germanic languages. The chapter starts from the presentation of lexical gender systems in Germanic languages and dialects, reflecting the relevant assignment criteria. It then turns to pronominal gender systems, showing that mismatches, specifically between adnominal and pronominal genders, can result in a re-organization of gender systems. Since many Germanic languages retain a second class of nouns next to gender, namely declension classes, the interrelation between gender and inflection classes is subject of a final section before conclusions are drawn.

Keywords

genderarticlespronounsdeclension classagreementindividuation hierarchyonymic gender
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics , pp. 259 - 281
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Audring, J. 2006. “Genusverlies en de betekenis van naamwoorden.” In Hüning, M., Vogl, U., van der Wouden, T., and Verhagen, A. (eds.), Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels. Handelingen van de workshop op 30 september en 1 oktober 2005 aan de Freie Universität Berlin. Leiden: SNL: 71–88.Google Scholar
Audring, J. 2010. “Deflexion und pronominales Genus.” In Dammel, A., Kürschner, S., and Nübling, D. (eds.), Kontrastive germanistische Linguistik. Hildesheim: Olms: 693–717.Google Scholar
Audring, J. and Booij, G. 2009. “Genus als probleemcategorie,” Taal en tongval 22: 13–37.Google Scholar
Braunmüller, K. 2000. “Gender in North Germanic: A diasystematic and functional approach.” In Unterbeck, B., Rissanen, M., Nevalainen, T., and Saari, M. (eds.), Gender in Grammar and Cognition. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter: 25–53.Google Scholar
Braunmüller, K. 2007. Die skandinavischen Sprachen im Überblick, third edn. Tübingen and Basel: Francke.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L. 1985. Morphology. A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Corbett, G. G. 1979. “The agreement hierarchy,” Journal of Linguistics 15: 203–395.Google Scholar
Corbett, G. G. 1991. Gender. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curzan, A. 2003. Gender Shifts in the History of English. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Ö. 2000. “Animacy and the notion of semantic gender.” In Unterbeck, B., Rissanen, M., Nevalainen, T., and Saari, M. (eds.), Gender in Grammar and Cognition. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter: 99–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dolberg, F. 2012. “Gender change from Old to Middle English.” In Hegedűs, I. and Fodor, A (eds.), English Historical Linguistics 2010. Selected Papers from the Sixteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 16), Pécs, 23–27 August 2010. Amsterdam: John Benjamins: 263–288.Google Scholar
Dolberg, F. 2014. Gender Variation, Change, and Loss in Mediaeval English. Evidence from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Doctoral dissertation, University of Hamburg.Google Scholar
Duke, J. 2009. The Development of Gender as a Grammatical Category: Five Case Studies from Germanic. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Duke, J. 2010. “Gender reduction and loss in Germanic.” In Dammel, A., Kürschner, S., and Nübling, D. (eds.), Kontrastive germanistische Linguistik. Hildesheim: Olms: 643–672.Google Scholar
Enger, H-O. (2004). “On the relation between gender and declension. A diachronic perspective from Norwegian,” Studies in Language 28: 51–82.Google Scholar
Fahlbusch, F. and Nübling, D. 2014. “Der Schauinsland – die Mobiliar – das Turm. Das referentielle Genus bei Eigennamen und seine Genese,” Beiträge zur Namenforschung 49.3: 245–288.Google Scholar
Fahlbusch, F. and Nübling, D. 2016. “Genus unter Kontrolle. Referentielles Genus bei Eigennamen – am Beispiel der Autonamen.” In A. Bittner and C. Spieß (eds.), Formen und Funktionen. Morphosemantik und grammatische Konstruktion: 103–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hockett, C. F. 1958. A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Jacobs, N. G., Prince, E. F., and van der Auwera, J. 2002. “Yiddish.” In König, E. and van der Auwera, J. (eds.), The Germanic Languages. London and New York: Routledge: 406–436.Google Scholar
Köpcke, K-M., Panther, K-U. and Zubin, D. 2010. “Motivating grammatical and conceptual gender agreement in German.” In Schmid, H-J. and Handl, S. (eds.), Cognitive Foundations of Linguistic Usage Patterns. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 171–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Köpcke, K-M. and Zubin, D. 1996. “Prinzipien für die Genuszuweisung im Deutschen.” In Lang, E. and Zifonun, G. (eds.), Deutsch: Typologisch. IDS-Jahrbuch 1995. Mannheim: IDS: 473–491.Google Scholar
Köpcke, K-M. and Zubin, D. 2009. “Genu.” In Hentschel, E. and Vogel, P. M. (eds.), Deutsche Morphologie. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 132–154.Google Scholar
Kürschner, S. and Nübling, D. 2011. “The interaction of gender and declension in Germanic languages,” Folia Linguistica 45.2: 355–388.Google Scholar
Leiss, E. 2000. “Gender in Old High German.” In Unterbeck, B., Rissanen, M., Nevalainen, T., and Saari, M. (eds.), Gender in Grammar and Cognition. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter: 237–258.Google Scholar
Meier-Brügger, M. 2002. Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft, eighth edn. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Nübling, D. 2008. “Was tun mit Flexionsklassen? Deklinationsklassen und ihr Wandel im Deutschen und seinen Dialekten,” Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 75.3: 282–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nübling, D. 2015. “Die Bismarck – der Arena – das Adler. Vom Drei-Genus- zum Sechs-Klassen-System bei Eigennamen im Deutschen: Degrammatikalisierung und Exaptation,” Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik 43.2: 306–344.Google Scholar
Nübling, D. 2017. “Funktionen neutraler Genuszuweisungen bei Personennamen und Personenbezeichnungen im germanischen Vergleich,” Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft 23: 173–211.Google Scholar
Nübling, D. in press. “Die Bismarck – der Arena – das Adler. The emergence of a classifier system for proper names in German.” In J. Flick and R. Szczepaniak (eds.), Walking on the Grammaticalization Path of the Definite Article in German: Functional Main and Side Roads.Google Scholar
Nübling, D., Busley, S., and Drenda, J. 2013. “Dat Anna und s Eva – Neutrale Frauenrufnamen in deutschen Dialekten und im Luxemburgischen zwischen pragmatischer und semantischer Genuszuweisung,” Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 80.2: 152–196.Google Scholar
Panther, K-U. 2009. “Grammatische versus konzeptuelle Kongruenz. Oder: Wann siegt das natürliche Geschlecht?” In Brdar-Szabó, R., Knipf-Komlósi, E., and Péteri, A. (eds.), An der Grenze zwischen Grammatik und Pragmatik. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang: 67–86.Google Scholar
Pedersen, K. M. 1999. ”Genusforenklingen i københavnsk,” Danske folkemål 41: 79–105.Google Scholar
Ponelis, F. 1979. Afrikaanse syntaksis. Pretoria: Van Schaik.Google Scholar
Quak, A. and van der Horst, J. M. 1997. “Oudnederlands (tot circa 1200).” In van den Toorn, M., Pijnenburg, W. J. J., van Leuvensteijn, J. A., and van der Horst, J. M. (eds.), Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taa. Amsterdam University Press: 19–36.Google Scholar
Ringgaard, K. 1986. “Fleksionssystemets forenkling og middelnedertysk,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 101: 173–183.Google Scholar
Roberge, P. 2002. “Convergence and the formation of Afrikaans,” Journal of Germanic Linguistics 14.1: 57–59.Google Scholar
Ronneberger-Sibold, E. 2007. “Typologically motivated over- and underspecification of gender in Germanic languages,” Language Typology and Universals 60: 205–218.Google Scholar
Sasse, H-J. 1993. “Syntactic categories and subcategories.” In Jacobs, J., von Stechow, A., Sternefeld, W., and Vennemann, T. (eds.), Syntax: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 646–686.Google Scholar
Siemund, P. 2008. Pronominal Gender in English: A Study of English Varieties from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Siemund, P. and Dolberg, F. 2011. “From lexical to referential gender: An analysis of gender change in medieval English based on two historical documents,” Folia Linguistica 45.2: 489–534.Google Scholar
Stenroos, M. 2008. “Order out of chaos? The English gender change in the southwest Midlands as a process of semantically based reorganization,” English Language and Linguistics 12: 445–473.Google Scholar
Wahrig-Burfeind, R. 1989. Nominales und pronominales Genus im südlichen Nordseegebiet: eine areallinguistische Untersuchung. Munich: Tuduv.Google Scholar
Wurzel, W. U. 1986. “Die wiederholte Klassifikation von Substantiven. Zur Entstehung von Deklinationsklassen,” Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 3.1: 76–96.Google Scholar
Wurzel, W. U. 2001. Flexionsmorphologie und Natürlichkeit. Ein Beitrag zur morphologischen Theoriebildung, second edn. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×