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Damaris Nübling / Simone Busley / Juliane Drenda: Dat Anna und s Eva - Neutrale Frauenrufnamen in deutschen Dialekten und im Luxemburgischen zwischen pragmatischer und semantischer Genuszuweisung 

Dialects in western Germany and Switzerland and Luxembourgish attribute a neuter gender to feminine given names, e.g., dat Anna, s Eva. In contrast, given names for males remain masculine, even when diminutive forms are created (alem. de Hanseli ‘art.m Hans.dim’). In many dialects, this onymic neuter is the unmarked norm, in Luxembourgish it is an obligatory accompaniment to any first name for a female. Where a feminine form does exist, it expresses social and emotional distance from the woman thus named. This article examines such onymic neuter forms along with given names of hybrid genus, which are in some regard neuter (e.g., attracting a neuter article) and in another feminine (e.g., as marked on the pronoun) or vice versa; where the gender is a matter of choice it is usually the pronouns that vary. It is argued that a degrammaticalization of gender is in progress, coupled with a refunctionalization (exaption) in which gender now specifies the social relationship between the speaker and the female named. Examples from Luxembourgish and various German dialects are employed to demonstrate that these neuter forms reflect patriarchal relations which designate women as housebound and controllable. The core (and probably originary) concept of this neuter, prototypically assigned to inanimates, references juvenile female kin. Metonymic shifts have expanded this to encompass all female relatives and familiars, irrespective of age. In contrast, the congruence of grammatical and biological feminine gender is used to designate employed (and hence agentive) women of high social status, who have entered the male competitive arena; in some dialects this has even acquired a negative connotation.