LINGUIST List 9.1581

Tue Nov 10 1998

Sum: Spanish gender (9.1567)

Editor for this issue: Brett Churchill <brettlinguistlist.org>

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1. Maria Jose Alvarez-Torres, summary responses to Spanish gender (9.1567)

In response to my question regarding sources for Spanish grammatical
gender and the tendency of word endings toward the masculine or
feminine gender:


I need to clarify that my question was related to the identification of
sources which have done a count on the frequency (%) in which noun
endings (particularly the so-called arbitrary suffixes) have a tendency
toward the masculine or the feminine gender. My only source at that
moment was Bull (1965) who presents a list of noun endings in Spanish
and a numerical count of words that either assign masculine or feminine
gender (or ambivalent), based on E.B. William's Spanish & English
dictionary (1955). 


Some respondants were very much amazed by my inquiry, because it seemed
that I was looking for sources where some gender rules were stated;
obviously this information can be easily found in any Spanish grammar
reference manual or dictionary. I am very thankful for all responses
and apologize for not having stated my question clearly enough. 


Here is a list of sources suggested by respondants:


Greenberg, Joseph, H., 1966. "Language universal with special
reference to feature hierarchies. The Hague: Mounton & CO. 

Harris, James. W. 1991. The exponence of gender in Spanish. Linguistic

Inquiry 22: 27-62. 

Klein, Philip. 1989. Spanish 'gender' vowels and lexical

representation. Hispanic Linguistics 3: 147-162.

Roca, Iggy. 1989. The organization of grammatical gender. Transactions

of the Philological Society 87: 1-32.

Teschner and Russel. 1984. The gender patterns of Spanish nouns:An

inverse dictionary-based analysis. Hispanic Linguistics 1: 115-132.

Whitley, Stanley. 1986. Spanish English contrast: a course in Spanish
linguistics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.


Other related readings:

Butt, J & Benjamin, C. 1994. A new reference grammar of modern
Spanish. London, England: Edward Arnold.

Castillo, C. & Bond, O.F. 1977. The University of Chicago Spanish

Dictionary. Third Edition. New York: Pocket Books.

Lang, M. F. Spanish word formation : productive derivational
morphology in the modern lexis. London ; New York : Routledge, 1990.

Real Academica Espanhola. 1982. Esbozo de una Nueva Gramatica de la
Lengua Espanola. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.

Rigault, A. Les marques du genre.1968. In Le francais dans le monde,
Vol. 57.

Surridge, M. 1993. Gender assignment in French. International Review
of Applied Linguistics, 31,


Maria Jose Alvarez-Torres
Ph.D candidate
Department of English
Michigan State University
alvarez3pilot.msu.edu
http://clear.msu.edu/people.html