Selected Papers from the Fourteenth International ... - STIBA Malang

10 Letizia Vezzosi
where its semantic gender system has reflexes in its syntax, specifically in its
Word Order.
The case in point consists of those occurrences where the same word, although
denoting the same entity, shows different gender. In those instances no other reason
can be put forward to motivate the change but the semantic roles 16 encoded
by the NP: in (13a–b) lyft denotes the same entity, but in (13a) it is neuter and in
(13b) it is feminine; the only difference between the two passages is that in (13a)
lyft is the object of the action and in (13b) it is the subject.
This preference for non-neuter gender for agent roles and for neuter gender for
patient roles could be one of the reasons why in (13c) cild is masculine, since in the
same text, i.e., Lindisfarne Gospel, it is regularly neuter if in the object position. Similarly,
in (13d) the formal rule, according to which the suffix –ung forms feminine
nouns, is rendered completely ineffective by the patient role played by geddung.
(13) a. [Hexam 6] He gesceop ðæt upplice lyft …
“the heavenly sky he created”
b. [Lchdom.iii.272.12] Ðeos lyft … is an ðæra feower gesceafta
“This sky is one of the several creations … ”
c. [L i/ 1, ] gefeade se cild (n.) in inna ire
exultauit infans in utero eius
d. [L xix /11] ðas ðæm geherendum to-geecde cuoeð þ geddung
haec illis audientibus adiciens dixit parabolam
In those occurrences, gender variation in the same lexeme apparently seems
to be unrelated to the above-mentioned semantic and pragmatic features, such as
[± countable], [± individuated]. On the other hand, semantic roles are linked to
other pragmatic features: topicality and animacy, first of all, for agents are prototypically
human or animate and topical, but also individuality, agents being generally
high in the individuality scale (cf. Givón 198 : 139 or Sasse 1993: 659). Consequently,
semantic roles also present the pertinent semantic and pragmatic traits already
investigated in the other instances of gender deviance, i.e., [± human] [± animate]
[± countable] [± specific] [± individuated], which are in turn specific manifestations
of the more general principles of ‘individualisation’ (Seiler 1986: 25).
1 . A similar phenomenon was noticed by Lazzeroni (2002) in Old Greek, in Sanskrit and in
Hittite, where words with the same referent but different gender had a complementary distribution
in the sentence, that is, masculine gender to encode the ‘actor’ and neuter the ‘undergoer’:
Sanskr. svar (n.) and sūrah ‘sun’, Sanskr. udaka-,udan-,vār-(n.) and ap-(f.) ‘water’; OGreek ὄυаρ
(n.) and ὄυєιοϚ (m.) ‘dream’; in Hittite watar ‘water’ is masculine when it purifies, but neuter
when is given. Already according to Meillet (1921: 129 ff.) the masculine form of ‘dream’ represented
the dream as active force, where the neuter as an event.