This paper examines the relation between gender and declension in Norwegian. Traditionally, one has assumed that genders are the basis for predicting declensions in that language. More recently, it has been suggested that declensions are the basis for predicting genders — in all languages that have both. Diachronic data examined in this paper indicate that the relation between gender and declension is complex: For most Norwegian nouns, declension is predicted on the basis of gender. For a few nouns, viz. those in which the plural is more token-frequent than the singular, declension is the basis on which gender is predicted.
The paper also illustrates the relevance of frequency, local markedness, ‘morphology by itself’ and the principle of contrast.
2023. Predicting ineffability: Grammatical gender and noun pluralization in Icelandic. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 8:1
Busterud, Guro, Terje Lohndal, Yulia Rodina & Marit Westergaard
2019. The loss of feminine gender in Norwegian: a dialect comparison. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 22:2 ► pp. 141 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav
2005. Do affixes have meaning? Polarity in the Toten dialect of Norwegian meets morphological theory. In Yearbook of Morphology 2005 [Yearbook of Morphology, ], ► pp. 27 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav
2009. The role of core and non-core semantic rules in gender assignment. Lingua 119:9 ► pp. 1281 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav
2010. How do words change inflection class? Diachronic evidence from Norwegian. Language Sciences 32:3 ► pp. 366 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav
2011. Gender and contact – a Natural Morphology perspective on Scandinavian examples. In Linguistic Universals and Language Variation, ► pp. 171 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav
2013. Morphological theory and grammaticalisation: the role of meaning and local generalisations. Language Sciences 36 ► pp. 18 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav
2014. Reinforcement in inflection classes: Two cues may be better than one. Word Structure 7:2 ► pp. 153 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav
2022. Type frequency is not the only factor that determines productivity, so the Tolerance Principle is not enough. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 144:2 ► pp. 161 ff.
Enger, Hans‐Olav
2007. The No Blur Principle meets Norwegian dialects*. Studia Linguistica 61:3 ► pp. 278 ff.
Enger, Hans‐Olav
2007. Grammaticalisation due to homonymy avoidance In Gudbrandsdalen /æpr˛ede/?1. Transactions of the Philological Society 105:1 ► pp. 42 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav & Greville G. Corbett
2012. Definiteness, Gender, and Hybrids: Evidence from Norwegian Dialects. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 24:4 ► pp. 287 ff.
Feleke, Tekabe Legesse & Terje Lohndal
2023. Gender variation across the Oromo dialects: A corpus‐based study*. Studia Linguistica 77:3 ► pp. 453 ff.
Johannessen, Janne Bondi & Ida Larsson
2015. Complexity Matters: On Gender Agreement in Heritage Scandinavian. Frontiers in Psychology 6
Kinn, Kari
2020. Stability and attrition in American Norwegian nominals: a view from predicate nouns. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 23:1 ► pp. 3 ff.
Kühl, Karoline & Jan Heegård Petersen
2021. Argentine Danish Grammatical Gender: Stability with Strongly Patterned Variation. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 33:1 ► pp. 67 ff.
Kürschner, Sebastian
2020. Grammatical Gender in Modern Germanic Languages. In The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics, ► pp. 259 ff.
Kürschner, Sebastian & Damaris Nübling
2011. The interaction of gender and declension in Germanic languages. Folia Linguistica 45:2
Lohndal, Terje & Marit Westergaard
2016. Grammatical Gender in American Norwegian Heritage Language: Stability or Attrition?. Frontiers in Psychology 7
Lohndal, Terje & Marit Westergaard
2021. Grammatical Gender: Acquisition, Attrition, and Change. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 33:1 ► pp. 95 ff.
Lundquist, Björn, Yulia Rodina, Irina A. Sekerina & Marit Westergaard
2016. Gender Change in Norwegian Dialects: Comprehension is affected before Production. Linguistics Vanguard 2:s1
Markússon, Jón Símon
2023. Accounting for different rates of gender reanalysis among Icelandic masculine forms in plural -ur. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 46:3 ► pp. 331 ff.
Nübling, Damaris
2020. Inflectional Morphology. In The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics, ► pp. 214 ff.
Opsahl, Toril
2021. Dead, but Won’t Lie Down? Grammatical Gender among Norwegians. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 33:1 ► pp. 122 ff.
Riksem, Brita
2017. Language Mixing and Diachronic Change: American Norwegian Noun Phrases Then and Now. Languages 2:2 ► pp. 3 ff.
Riksem, Brita Ramsevik, Maren Berg Grimstad, Terje Lohndal & Tor A. Åfarli
2019. Language mixing within verbs and nouns in American Norwegian. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 22:2 ► pp. 189 ff.
Rodina, Yulia & Marit Westergaard
2013. The acquisition of gender and declension class in a non‐transparent system: monolinguals and bilinguals. Studia Linguistica 67:1 ► pp. 47 ff.
Rodina, Yulia & Marit Westergaard
2015. Grammatical Gender in Norwegian: Language Acquisition and Language Change. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 27:2 ► pp. 145 ff.
RODINA, YULIA & MARIT WESTERGAARD
2017. Grammatical gender in bilingual Norwegian–Russian acquisition: The role of input and transparency. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20:1 ► pp. 197 ff.
Rodina, Yulia & Marit Westergaard
2021. Grammatical Gender and Declension Class in Language Change: A Study of the Loss of Feminine Gender in Norwegian. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 33:3 ► pp. 235 ff.
Rácz, Péter, Viktória Papp & Jennifer Hay
2016. Frequency and Corpora. In The Cambridge Handbook of Morphology, ► pp. 685 ff.
2023. A User’s Defense of the Tolerance Principle: Reply to Enger (2022). Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 145:4 ► pp. 563 ff.
Åfarli, Tor Anders, Mari Nygård & Brita Ramsevik Riksem
2022. Gender ‘Translation’ And Distributed Gender: Evidence From The Norwegian DP And Language Mixing*. Studia Linguistica 76:2 ► pp. 626 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.