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

Gender assignment in Old English 10
In other words, Old English gender incoherence is not chaotic, but depends
on the primary conceptual parameter of individualisation or ‘divisibility’ (Vogel
2000), which secondary features underlie (Weber 2000):
[+ countable] [– countable]
[+ individualized] [– individualized]
[+ external perspective] [– external perspective]
[– additive] [+ additive]
[– divisible] [+ divisible]
All the traits on the left column speak for a higher degree of individualisation and
consequently favour the non-neuter gender assignment. On the contrary, every
feature in the right column characterises lower degree of individualisation and
often corresponds to neuter nominal gender.
. Conclusion
Nearly all historical discussions of English classification suggest that English gender
evolved from a grammatical to a natural system. Such a shift is generally explained
as the direct result of the decay of noun and modifier inflectional endings
in the late Old English and early Middle English (Mustanoja 1960). Along this line
gender inconsistency is considered to be connected with the decadence 17 of the
Old English nominal system: 18 developments such as “the dissolution of inflectional
classes, the dissociation of the categories of case and number and the gradual
generalization of word-based noun morphology” (Kastovsky 2000: 709–10)
affected the rules on which the Old English formal system was based.
Accordingly, gender variability simply signals “the disintegration of the category
as such and consequently of the gradual loss of any sensitivity for grammatical
gender” (Kastovsky 2000: 722). However, it has been attested in all types
of texts, irrespective of text genres and chronology: it is not rare to come upon
gender deviance even in Beowulf (see 1 ). Therefore, we agree with Kastovsky
(2000: 709–10) when he argues that “the decay of [grammatical] gender is not just
1 . The analyses of Fleischhacker (1889) and Wełna (1978) also concord with this view: borrowings
or loanwords are not internalised into the target language morphology and prestigious
foreign languages could be very influential, as well as concept associations and morphological
levelling were possible, because of the weakness and opacity of the Old English nominal system.
1 . Mitchell (1985: § 62–65) provides three explanations for these mixtures of forms: errors
from ignorance of a ‘dying system’; analogical confusion confined to a particular context; variation
(or confusion) of gender and class in Germanic and in Old English.