In the definite form an adjective in Swedish can end in either -a or -e, with the e-form being used in writing especially with masculine reference together with nouns of the n-gender. For a long time, however, there has been some variation in usage, so that the e-form is sometimes also employed with female reference or together with nouns of t-gender. Widmark shows in a study from 1992 that there is uncertainty among Swedish speakers about how the forms should be used. The aim of the present study is to investigate the extent to which speakers accept different uses in writing of the e-form of the adjective in the definite singular form, and to see whether the sociolinguistic vari­ables age, sex, dialect, education and familiarity with writing are of any significance in this. Another aim is to conduct a comparison with Widmark’s study to see whether there has been any change in usage in the last few decades. The study proceeds from sociolinguistic theory of linguistic variation and changes and uses a quantitative method. In a questionnaire the respondents were asked to judge a number of examples with the e-form of the adjective in different linguistic contexts. The number of respondents was 181; they constitute a convenience sample. To find material for the examples in the questionnaire, a corpus study was undertaken first. The result shows that acceptance of expressions that do not follow the norms of written language is in most cases low. A majority of the respondents think that the e-form should be used primarily with masculine or general reference. Younger respondents are more uncertain about usage, while older respondents follow the written standard to a higher extent. Women take a more negative view of non-standard uses; on the other hand, more men than women are positive towards examples where the e-form is used according to the norm. Dialect is significant in that respondents from parts of Sweden where final ‑a has become ‑e are more willing to accept non-standard uses. Respondents with a university education reply to a higher extent in accordance with the written norm. The result found no difference in usage compared with Widmark’s study.

(in English): As the title itself indicates, the topic of this thesis is the linguistic sexism in contemporary Spanish. The theoretical part offers a critical perspective on the phenomenon of so called sexism in language and defines terms such as linguistic sexism, androcentrism or invisibilization of women in the language. It also provides a brief outline of the development of gender linguistics with an emphasis on Spanish-speaking countries and provides an overview of important works on the topic. The thesis also deals with the contrast between linguistic sexism and sexism as a social issue, as well as with the question whether language can be sexist, or whether the sexism is caused by the way the speakers use the language. Particular attention is paid to the issue of gender in language and phenomena that are considered as sexist, especially the generic masculine. The practical part is mainly dedicated to lexical issues: denoting women in professions that were traditionally male and idioms and set phrases that can be examples of sexist use of language or a possible reflection of social sexism in language. It also analyses the asymmetry in addressing women and men in a polite way, inadequate pairs, apparently dual forms and missing lexical units as well as insults and profanities that can be...

In this dissertation, I investigate a number of interrelated developments affecting the morphosyntax of nouns in Cappadocian Greek. I specifically focus on the development of differential object marking, the loss of grammatical gender distinctions, and the neuterisation of noun inflection. My aim is to provide a diachronic account of the innovations that Cappadocian has undergone in the three domains mentioned above. !ll the innovations examined in this study have the effect of rendering the morphology and syntax of nouns in Cappadocian more like that of neuters. On account of the historical and sociolinguistic circumstances in which Cappadocian developed as well as of the superficial similarity of their outcomes to equivalent structures in Turkish, previous research has overwhelmingly treated the Cappadocian developments as instances of contact-induced change that resulted from the influence of Turkish. In this study, I examine the Cappadocian innovations from a language-internal point of view and in comparison with parallel developments attested in the other Modern Greek dialects of Asia Minor, namely Pontic, Rumeic, Pharasiot and Silliot. My comparative analysis of a wide range of dialect-internal, cross-dialectal and cross-linguistic typological evidence shows that language contact with Turkish can be identified as the main cause of change only in the case of differential object marking. On the other hand, with respect to the origins of the most pervasive innovations in gender and noun inflection, I argue that they go back to the common linguistic ancestor of the modern Asia Minor Greek dialects and do not owe their development to language contact with Turkish. I show in detail that the superficial similarity of these latter innovations’ outcomes to their Turkish equivalents in each case represents the final stage in a long series of typologically plausible, language-internal developments whose early manifestations predate the intensification of Cappadocian–Turkish linguistic and cultural exchange. These findings show that diachronic change in Cappadocian is best understood when examined within a larger Asia Minor Greek context. On the whole, they make a significant contribution to our knowledge of the history of Cappadocian and the Asia Minor Greek dialects as well as to Modern Greek dialectology more generally, and open a fresh round of discussion on the origin and development of other innovations attested in these dialects that are considered by historical linguists and Modern Greek dialectologists to be untypically Greek or contact-induced or both.

This diploma thesis focuses on the expression of the feminine gender in contemporary Portuguese. It is mainly concentrated on the manifestations of linguistic feminization within two language variants of Portuguese (European and Brazilian). The thesis is divided into several parts. The first part focuses on general issues related to the grammatical category of gender. This means that the linguistic gender is examined from a historical, semantic and syntactic point of view. Due to different interpretations of this category, the very nature of the grammatical gender is also discussed. The second part analyses the different ways in which the feminine gender can be expressed in contemporary Portuguese. The practical part is introduced by the third chapter and is connected with the main goal of this diploma thesis. It consists in verifying whether the manifestations of linguistic feminization, in this case the use of gender inflected forms, are common linguistic phenomena in Portuguese or not. To confirm this statement, linguistic data from two language corpora were used for this verification. Furthermore, the answers to the online questionnaire aiming at this issue became an additional source of the necessary data. The resulting figures prove a certain presence of linguistic feminization in both...