The article discusses the gender of suffixes deriving abstract nouns of the Brittonic languages Welsh, Breton and Cornish against the theoretical background of functional gender theories. These theories assume that gender plays a role in... more
The article discusses the gender of suffixes deriving abstract nouns of the Brittonic languages Welsh, Breton and Cornish against the theoretical background of functional gender theories. These theories assume that gender plays a role in the classification of the nominal lexicon, i.e. it classifies nouns according to the feature [±particularized] thus expressing nominal aspect. The effects of this classification may be observed in abstract nouns in Modern High German, but the feature is assumed to be ultimatively inherited from Proto-Indo-European.
Although all Brittonic languages display remarkable similarities with regard to their nominal morphology, the gender of suffixes and the restructuring which each language experienced varies considerably between them. The association of feminine (and neuter) gender with abstractness was probably already lost in Proto-Brittonic. Abstract nouns are predominantly masculine in Welsh and Cornish, while the higher proportion of feminine patterns in Breton is largely due to French influence. Further, Breton points to the emergence of a functional gender system within some parts of the lexicon.
