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Article published In:
Spanish in Context
Vol. 15:3 (2018) ► pp.392–416

Gender assignment to Spanish-English mixed DPs

Singleton vs. multiword switches

| Wayne State University

Previous studies on gender assignment to Spanish-English mixed Determiner Phrases (DPs) have noticed a tendency to default to the masculine gender (e.g. el store). However, some studies have revealed that other factors such as the gender of the Spanish translation equivalent (analogical criterion) are also relevant, particularly in written discourse (e.g. la conference). Further, it has been hypothesized that feminine-marked mixed DPs in oral discourse, which are viewed as exceptions to the default gender strategy, should be highly restricted to singleton switches (Valdés Kroff 2016). This paper investigates if feminine-marked mixed DPs are restricted to singleton switches in written discourse by analyzing a mixed-language text, which contains both types of switches (singleton and multiword). The results confirm the importance of the analogical criterion in written discourse and show that feminine-marked DPs are not restricted to singleton switches, and that the analogical criterion is relevant to both singleton and multiword switches.

Keywords: code-mixed DPs, gender assignment, analogical criterion, loanwords
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Criteria for gender assignment
  • 3.Studies of gender assignment to loanwords and switches
    • 3.1Gender assignment to loanwords
    • 3.2Determiner-noun code-switching
  • 4.Gender assignment in written multiword English sequences
    • 4.1Methodology
    • 4.2Results and Discussion
  • 5.Conclusions and suggestions for further research
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.00020.cas
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