Search

Copyright of Jahrbuch für Germanistische Sprachgeschicht is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Jahrbuch für Germanistische Sprachgeschicht is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Jahrbuch für Germanistische Sprachgeschicht is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Linguistica Pragensia (Charles University Prague, Faculty of Arts) is the property of Charles University Prague, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An attempt is made to show that Hittite menu- (/mēnu-/) normally means ‚male', whereas in the text KBo 3.28 it means 'human being'. So Cuneiform Luvian mannu- n. 'virility, male fecundity' and mannu-/mannaw- 'virile, fecundating' are no longer isolated within Anatolian. The root has correctly been recognized as *men- 'to tower, stand out'. As far as u-stems are concerned, PIE probably possessed a resultative neuter *món-u/*ménu- 'the outstanding thing/being (in height)' < 'virility' with an internally derived adjective *ménu-/*mn-éu- 'virile, fecundating'. The latter could be substantivized as *menu- 'man, human being' (Hittite menu-, Vedic mánu-). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Alemannic dialects in linguistic islands in Northern Italy have been undergoing strong changes since the second half of the 20th century. One of these changes concerns the assignment of gender with persons. Generalized neuter abolishes the coupling of gender with male/female and transfers both female and male persons into neuter. This in turn has its effect on verbal inflection. The post-verbal subject clitics mutate in the 3rd person singular to verb endings void of male/female connotations. This change, as it is now spreading, is not in itself a recent phenomenon. In early written dialectal records it already occurs in single documents even at the beginning of the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data of the dialect research project "Das Anna und ihr Hund. Weibliche Rufnamen im Neutrum" indicate the important role of diminutive names in terms of the historical development and consolidation of the onymic neuter gender assignment. The focus in the present article lies therefore on the forms and the use of diminutive names (e.g. Anneli, Ruedi) in Swiss-German dialects. Based on diachronic evidence from literary works and regional dictionaries, differences in the diminution of male and female names are historically traced and substantiated. It is for pragmatic reasons that female kinship names (e.g. Mami) are crystallized to be the last bastion for the neutral gender assignment which opens up new perspectives on the diachronic emergence of this phenomenon. The consideration of further onymic suffixes in the outlook brings up a debate on the disagreement of gender and sex which is considered to be a possible objective of the suffixation itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In numerous German dialects and in Luxembourgish women or girls are referred to in the neuter. This raises the question whether this is also the case for female animals. Based on data from the research project "Das Anna und ihr Hund - Weibliche Rufnamen im Neutrum", the present article examines the gender of names and pronouns referring to dogs. Dogs today are no longer kept primarily to perform functions (guard dog, herding dog) but rather as pets and companions. This is also reflected in the fact that dogs are given names. In general, these clearly mark the sex of the dog. In the dialects we investigated pronouns, which refer to female dogs, are predominantly masculine, not feminine or neuter. Sex-specific appellatives are not used either. In addition, the assignment of the neuter gender to dogs' names (e.g. s Frida) occurs much less frequently than to first names of women (e.g. s Anna). The functions of the socio-pragmatic neuter when referring to women, such as marking age, status, or gender roles, rarely appear to play a role when referring to dogs. Only in Luxembourgish, where the neuter primarily marks female sex, are female animals referred to more often with neuter forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specialty of hybrid nouns is their different agreement according to certain features of the agreement target. They result from a conflict within in the gender assignment system. For example, the German noun Mädchen (semi-transparent diminutive for denoting a girl) is grammatical neuter but it refers to a female person. In German, nouns denoting females are feminine but diminutives are neuter. Since both rules apply, you can refer to Mädchen with a neuter (es) but also with a feminine pronoun (sie). There are different factors which influence the agreement pattern: the linear distance between noun and pronoun and the type of agreement target. So far there are only few studies on the influence of possible non-grammatical factors such as the age of the referent. In this paper, I elaborate on those factors and present the results of a discourse completion task focusing on the influence of a sexualized context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

German words ending in ›-nis‹ can have either the female or the neutral gender. As is well known, in his Critique of Pure Reason as well as in other writings, Kant often shifts from the neuter to the feminine for words having the mentioned ending, without thereby leading to a difference in meaning. However, in German the word »knowledge « (as a neuter noun) does not only have an epistemological meaning, but a legal sense as well. It has the meaning of »arbitration award, a judge´s decision, verdict«. In the present article I try to prove that Kant occassionally uses the word »knowledge« in the legal sense rather than in the epistemological sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]