Feminint och maskulint, animat och inanimat, manligt och kvinnligt

My paper studies the nominal system in a dialect of Småland, spoken in Urshult, as it has been coded and transcribed in a volume by Swea Johansson, a native speaker of this dialect. In this variety, a large portion of the weak feminines, in modern Swedish roughly nouns ending -a, for example penna ’pencil’, instead end in -e, penne ’pencil’. Furthermore, the definite form frequently ends in -na, pennena (pencil.the) ’the pencil’, a form that can be compared to the modern standard Swedish pennan ’the pencil’. The result shows that both the e- and the (e)-na form are typically, though not uniquely, used for nouns denoting inanimates, whereas the corresponding forms ending in -a and -n – as in modern standard Swedish – are typically, though not uniquely, used for nouns denoting animate and female referents. The e- and the -(e)na forms (see above) seem to be derived from the Old Swedish accusative forms. The findings corroborate Wessén’s connection between nominative case and animates, as well as between accusative case and inanimates. The paper also discusses the transition from the Old Swedish three-gender system, to the present-day two-gender system, arguing that this process is best viewed as the feminine gender on nouns disappearing, not that masculine and feminine merge into a common gender.