Genus und Sexus im Konflikt.

Kongruenzformen hybrider Nomina im Sprachproduktionsprozess

Abstract

The specialty of hybrid nouns is their different agreement according to certain features of the agreement target. They result from a conflict within in the gender assignment system. For example, the German noun Mädchen (semi-transparent diminutive for denoting a girl) is grammatical neuter but it refers to a female person. In German, nouns denoting females are feminine but diminutives are neuter. Since both rules apply, you can refer to Mädchen with a neuter (es) but also with a feminine pronoun (sie).

There are different factors which influence the agreement pattern: the linear distance between noun and pronoun and the type of agreement target. So far there are only few studies on the influence of possible non-grammatical factors such as the age of the referent. In this paper, I elaborate on those factors and present the results of a discourse completion task focusing on the influence of a sexualized context.