Universität zu Köln

Reina, Javier Caro and Nowak, Jessica (2019). Diachronic development of gender in city names in Spanish. STUF-Lang. Typol. Universals, 72 (4). S. 505 - 539. BERLIN: WALTER DE GRUYTER GMBH. ISSN 2196-7148

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Abstract

This paper examines the gender assignment rules that apply to city names in the history of Spanish, relying for the first time on extensive corpus-based material. The empirical data show that gender assignment changed from a referential principle that consistently assigned city names to the feminine (due to the feminine basic level noun for 'city') to a phonologically driven assignment rule, with city names ending in -a generally being assigned to the feminine (e.g. Barcelona) and those ending in -o or -C to the masculine (e.g. Toledo, Madrid). However, the overall picture is much more complicated than previously suggested in the literature since there is still a high degree of gender variation in Modern Spanish. The use of the feminine is still possible in city names ending in -o or -C. Interestingly, the change from referential to phonological gender assignment occurs first within the NP (mainly with quantifiers such as tod- o/-a 'all-M/-F'). It is in this morphosyntactic context that city names with final -a most commonly shift from the feminine to the masculine gender. This case of evasive gender will be discussed from a typological perspective.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Reina, Javier Caro UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Nowak, Jessica UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-129332
DOI:	10.1515/stuf-2019-0020
Journal or Publication Title:	STUF-Lang. Typol. Universals
Volume:	72
Number:	4
Page Range:	S. 505 - 539
Date:	2019
Publisher:	WALTER DE GRUYTER GMBH
Place of Publication:	BERLIN
ISSN:	2196-7148
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Fächergruppe 5: Moderne Sprachen und Kulturen > Romanisches Seminar
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Language & Linguistics Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/12933