Ex-neuter-gender nouns in Canadian Doukhobor Russian

Abstract

This paper addresses the morpho-syntactic forms of ex-neuter-gender of Canadian Doukhobor Russian nouns. Doukhobor Russian is a near-extinct variety of Russian spoken by a small group of elderly Doukhobors (a religious and ethnic minority of Russian origins) residing mostly in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta. While Standard Russian has three noun genders (feminine, masculine and neuter), this paper demonstrates that in Doukhobor Russian, a neuter gender erosion has been taking place, whereby ex-neuter-gender nouns have been shifting their declension paradigms mostly to feminine F1 declension forms. Ex-neuter-gender words in Doukhobor Russian also mostly agree with pronouns, attributives, and numerals in feminine gender. They also predominantly agree in feminine gender with preterite verb forms. Two major subclasses of ex-neuter-gender nouns are identified: those in which the stem is stressed and those in which the stress is on the inflectional vowel. A stressed vowel in an inflectional suffix of the nominative and the accusative blocks the paradigm shift of ex-neuter-gender nouns, but does not prevent female gender agreement with attributives and preterite verb forms. The discussion identifies parallels of neuter-gender erosion in Doukhobor Russian with similar processes found in 19th and 20th century Russian dialects.