Trinidad Guzmán González
Departamento de Filología Moderna
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Campus de Vegazana s/n 24071 León
University of León (SPAIN)
Tfno: 987 291 091
Fax: 987 291 099
E-mail: dfmtgg@unileon.es

Gender story II: the sequel

This paper is a sequel in two respects. On the one hand, it claims continuity with a paper in SELIM 1989 entitled "The category of gender in Old and Middle English: A reappraisal"; on the other, it is the second part to a forthcoming paper at the 11th ICEHL to be held in Santiago de Compostela next september.

In the first one, I discussed the hypothesis that there may have existed in Old English "a double system of agreement as to gender". Within the Noun Phrase, concordance would conform to grammatical grouping, whereas anaphoric co-reference would be made according to extra-linguistic parameters (± sexual dimorphism). Recent approaches suggest that special attention should be paid to a possible spoken colloquial origin for that double concord, the evidence for which is obviously irrecoverable to a great extent. Any research (necessarily long-termed) should pursue two connected paths here: a) Re-appraisal of the existing literature, especially that concerning statistical data, dialectal evidence and non-literary texts. b) Examination (re-examination, where relevant) of evidence: first, texts nearer to neutral coloured styles; second, texts related to the Danelaw; then, original OE prose, poetry, and finally translations.

These are pursued taking into account the unavoidable diffraction caused by the limited scope and extent of the OE corpus, the rising importance attributed to the Scandinavian influence on English and studies on variation, the actualist methodology and sociolinguistics.

A critical summary and detailed evaluation of the proposed research plus the assessment of part of the reference material and a case study with a first group of texts will be presented at Santiago. In Jaén, we hope to offer enriched views from the feedback obtained at ICEHL: further evaluation, the assessment of a different group of references, and a new case study from a second group of texts.