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Dutch Double Gender Nouns: Arbitrary or Motivated Agreement?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2012

Chiara Semplicini
Chiara Semplicini*
Affiliation:
University of Perugia
*
Università degli Studi di Perugia, Dipartimento di Filosofia, Linguistica e Letterature, Sezione di Linguistica, Piazza Morlacchi 11, 06123 Perugia (PG), Italy, [semplicini@yahoo.it]
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Abstract

Recent studies on spoken Dutch emphasize an ongoing recategorization of pronominal gender on semantic grounds, with no apparent con-nection to lexical gender (Audring 2006, 2009; De Vogelaer 2006, 2009; De Vogelaer & De Sutter 2010; De Vogelaer & De Vos 2011). In fact, gender instability is not confined to the pronominal domain: Some Dutch nouns display more than one lexical gender (de/het-nouns), a phenomenon that has not been linked to the process of pronominal re-semanticization. The aim of this paper is to identify the common semantic and pragmatic basis for pronominal gender agreement and the choice of a determiner for double gender nouns.

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ARTICLES
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Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , 02 May 2012 , pp. 133 - 186
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Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2012

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