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Definiteness, Gender, and Hybrids: Evidence from Norwegian Dialects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2012

Hans-Olav Enger  and
Greville G. Corbett
Hans-Olav Enger*
Affiliation:
University of Oslo
Greville G. Corbett*
Affiliation:
University of Surrey
*
Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, PO Box 1102 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway, [[email protected]]
Surrey Morphology Group, School of English and Languages, Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, Great Britain, [[email protected]]
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Abstract

In some Norwegian dialects, such as older Oslo dialect, the noun mamma ‘mother’ unexpectedly appears to be masculine. The Nordreisa dialect (Northern Norwegian) goes one step further. The word looks like it is masculine, but only in the definite form. This is an unusual “split” because gender mixture is normally based on number, not definiteness (but we find some few corroborative examples in other Norwegian dialects and different, but converging evidence on the Web). The Nordreisa example of mamma is unusual also because agreement targets are affected differently. The preference is for masculine agreement within the noun phrase, but for feminine agreement outside it. This is, therefore, an intriguing example since it combines a split based on definiteness with different gender require-ments according to different agreement targets. On careful analysis, and given strict adherence to the classical, agreement-based definition of gender, the unusual behavior of mamma turns out to conform to the Agreement Hierarchy.*

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , 19 November 2012 , pp. 287 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2012

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