LSRL 90: Gender Alternation in Ambiguous Spanish Nouns: Historical Overview

Gender Alternation in Ambiguous Spanish Nouns: Historical Overview

Eva Núñez Méndez

Portland State University

This volume offers an overview of the major historical changes in ambiguously gendered Spanish nouns. Starting with gendered Latin cases, it analyzes gender transformation patterns in Spanish. By focusing on those nouns that do not show the consistent suffixal –o/–a alternation for masculine and feminine, this book studies the irregularities and distinctions which made these nouns unique from the perspective of grammatical gender. Why certain inanimate nouns like mano or día did not conform to the typical binary word endings of –o/–a is the point of departure for this research.

It also studies the evolution of gender hybridism in inanimate nouns that have kept both the masculine and feminine forms due to evolutionary reasons, such as el arte/las artes, el/la almíbar, el/la azúcar, los/las lentes, el/la mar, el/la pringue, among others. By reviewing modern gender variations in words such as bombillo/bombilla, cerillo/cerilla, manito/manita, moño/moña, sabático/sabática, el/la armazón, el/la interrogante, el/la maratón, el/la parálisis, el/la pijama, el/la quiche, el/la sartén, el/la sauna, el/la tanga, el/la vodka, this volume examines how important regional and sociolinguistic layers intersect to explain cross-dialectal alternation of gender in nouns.

This research aims to present the history of the alternation of these variants with masculine/feminine ambiguity that the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) itself has described in its modern dictionary editions.

ISBN 9783969392751 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Romance Linguistics 90. 104pp. 2026.