Genuswechsel – Bedeutungswechsel: Zur Genussemantik der Shift-Nomen im Deutschen
Change of Gender – Change of Meaning: On the Gender Semantics of Shift Nouns in German)

Summary/Abstract: Shift refers to a precisely definable morphological class of nominal lexeme pairs in many European languages, whose members can be distinguished by the semantic opposition of male/female. This category is absent in the German male/female domain. However, it can be defined for German as well, if the named semantic opposition is expanded to the generic domain, i.e., to male/female/diverse. Thus, gender forms of various types in German, whose (inflectional) morphological status is often unclear, can also be classified as shift nouns, because the shift in meaning from male or female to generic is accompanied by a corresponding gender change in the nouns. The analysis first establishes the profile of the prototypical shift in contrast languages within the male/female domain. The gender semantics so defined is then transferred in the second step to the (generic) male/female/diverse domain. Subsequently, the prototypical shift parameters are meaningfully weakened so that even recorded/potential/peripheral gender forms of the new generation in German (such as nouns ending in -in, -y, -x, etc.) can be integrated. On this basis, an expanded concept of shift for German is developed, which morphologically captures these forms and assigns them a unified gender semantics. My aim in this paper is by no means to take a position in the debate on gender inclusive language or to evaluate the different alternatives for gender inclusive forms. The sole focus is to provide evidence, based on gender morphological principles, for an expanded, productive gender semantics at the system level in German.

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