Changing Genders: Linguistic Factors Beyond Ambiguous Gender Marking and the Case of Spanish el arte vs el ave and el hambre

Abstract

The Spanish noun arte is unique in that it is, for all intents and purposes, masculine in the singular, but feminine in the plural, e.g. el arte culinario vs las artes culinarias. This noun was feminine in Latin, and in Old Spanish as well, but because it has been preceded by the ‘feminine el’ (i.e., allomorph of the feminine definite article la) and has exhibited the ambiguous gender marker –e, el arte (feminine) was eventually, and understandably, reanalysed as el arte (masculine). The feminine nouns ave and hambre, however, which exhibit the same morphology as arte when appearing with the feminine el, complicate the seemingly transparent historical development of the change in gender from el arte (f.) > el arte (m.). The present study seeks to identify factors beyond ambiguous gender marking that can explain why a change in gender from feminine to masculine has occurred in the case of el arte, but not in the case of el ave and el hambre, thus contributing, not only to our understanding of this one aspect of Spanish historical grammar, but also to issues of gender and gender change in general linguistic theory.