„Was ist es mit diesem grammatisch ungeheuerlichen ‚ihns‘?“

Klein, Andreas; Nübling, Damaris

doi:10.13092/lo.98.5929

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…The project was conducted from 2015 to 2020 and funded by the German Research Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg (D-A-CH procedure). It resulted in four doctoral theses and various articles in linguistics (Busley & Fritzinger 2018;2020;Martin 2019;Klein & Nübling 2019;Baumgartner 2019;Baumgartner et al 2020;Baumgartner & Christen 2021). The sections that follow offer a brief presentation of the most important findings.…”

Section: Sociopragmatic Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Referring to women using feminine and neuter gender

Busley

Nübling

2021

NOSO

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In German, gender is a strongly grammaticalized category and has the function of indicating grammatical agreement between syntactic units. Usually, each noun is assigned one of three grammatical genders. In standard German, nouns denoting women are typically feminine. However, Luxembourgish and some German dialects show a peculiarity: here, the gender of female first names and other parts of speech (e.g. pronouns) referring to women can be both feminine and neuter, depending on the nature of the interpersonal relationship between the speaker and the female referred to. In these varieties, gender assignment is governed by sociopragmatic factors. Sociopragmatic gender assignment is a result of de-grammaticalization, which is reflected in both syntagmatic and paradigmatic gender variability. The study shows that there is considerable diatopic variation in the use and function of gender in references to women. In some dialects, the neuter has become the default gender of female first names; this is a case of re-grammaticalization.

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Section: Sociopragmatic Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Referring to women using feminine and neuter gender

Busley

Nübling

2021

NOSO

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“…). Weitere Ausführungen zu dieser Form, auch in anderen Dialekten, finden sich inBächler (2018) sowieKlein & Nübling (2019). Die nicht eigens erfragte Form wird im SADS noch in drei weiteren Belegen von zwei Gewährspersonen aus OW gebraucht, in einemfür die Frage nicht einschlägigen -Kommentar (Giswil) zuIV.38 (vgl.…”

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Syntaktischer Atlas der deutschen Schweiz (SADS). Band 1: Einleitung und Kommentare

2021

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neutering neuter – grammatical gender and the dehumanisation of women in German

Nübling

Lind

2021

JLD

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Grammatical gender in German has traditionally been described as a rather arbitrary system (Helbig and Buscha 1988). This is not the case in regard to terms of person reference, where natural gender assignment is the norm: Masculine and feminine grammatical gender largely correlate with the extralinguistic assignment of male and female gender. Neuter gender predominantly denotes inanimate entities (Köpcke and Zubin 1996, 2009). The use of neutral gender in reference to women nevertheless has a long history in German, usually with pejorative connotations (Köpcke and Zubin 1996, 2009). Historically, this can be illustrated in relation to nouns, pronouns and articles: 1 By neuter nouns denoting ‘socially incomplete’ women, e.g. das Weib ‘woman (archaic), hag, n.’, das Luder ‘hussy, n.’ and in the increased use of neuter eliciting diminutives in reference to female individuals, e.g. das Mädchen ‘girl, n.’, das Fräulein ‘miss, n.’ (Nübling 2017). 2 Through the use of neuter pronouns and neuter articles in combination with female names in a number of German dialects, e.g. das Emma, es ‘the (n.) Emma, it’ (Busley and Fritzinger 2018). In contemporary standard German, the use of neuter articles and pronouns instead of feminine ones seems to be used as a discursive tool to denigrate and dehumanise women whose gender performance does not conform with hegemonic concepts of femininity. This paper focuses on the intentional manipulation of grammatical gender in reference to women as a tool of degradation and dehumanisation and outlines the historical development of neuter forms of reference in contexts where feminine would be expected.

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„Was ist es mit diesem grammatisch ungeheuerlichen ‚ihns‘?“

Cited by 3 publications

References 1 publication

Referring to women using feminine and neuter gender

Referring to women using feminine and neuter gender

Syntaktischer Atlas der deutschen Schweiz (SADS). Band 1: Einleitung und Kommentare

neutering neuter – grammatical gender and the dehumanisation of women in German

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