Gender Formal regularization in the adjectives of Catalan in comparison with Spanish

Abstract

Due to the loss of the neutral gender in the evolution from Latin to Romance languages, three-ending Latin adjectives were adapted as two-ending adjectives in Catalan, usually with the marks O in the masculine and -a in the feminine, as in clar ‘clear, masc.’ ~ clar-a ‘clear, fem.’; this pattern is transparent and maximally iconic. Two-ending Latin adjectives became invariable instead, as in old Catalan fort-O ‘strong’, giving rise to gender syncretic forms, which lack transparency and iconicity. Despite the naturalness challenges raised by syncretism, it can be maintained if invariable classes are defined by extramorphological properties that enhance their stability, as is the case of Spanish with the ending -e determining membership to the invariable gender class (e.g., fuert-e ‘strong’). In Catalan, though, the lack of exclusive endings for invariable adjectives worsens their iconicity and transparency, and so the tendency to create analogical feminine forms (e.g., fort-a ‘strong, fem.’) is stronger than in Spanish.