The double life of gender and its structural consequences

Abstract

Chapter 6 investigates variation in the domain of gender in Italian. The Standard Italian nominal system morphologically marks two distinct genders, three distinct nominal classes (idiosyncratic nominal endings), and two numbers, a combination which lends itself to a theoretical investigation of complex gender interactions. Crucially, Italian nominal inflection also distinguishes between grammatical, i.e. idiosyncratic, and natural, i.e. context-dependent, gender. The chapter argues that while some nouns come with gender determined from the lexicon, others may get their gender valued only via the context. Such a contextual valuation may arise only at the phase level, with D being the locus of such a valuation. Evidence comes from agreement and derivational morphology.