The frequency of word gender as a variable for lexical access in Spanish

Bibliographic Data

ID7913645
AuthorsAnthea Santos (Universidad de La Laguna), Beatriz Bermúdez-Margaretto (0000-0002-3687-3634, Universidad de Salamanca), Carlos J Álvarez (0000-0003-2737-956X, Universidad de La Laguna), Alberto Dominguez (0000-0002-4958-0179, Universidad de La Laguna, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume60
Issue4
Pages1149-1167
Publication date2022-07-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling-2020-0054
OpenAlexW4225831303
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited37

The endings of Spanish nouns reflect gender with varying degrees of frequency and regularity. The most common and regular endings are -o for masculine nouns and -a for feminine nouns, - o being more frequent and less closely associated with a specific gender category (masculine) than -a . Pairs of words occurring with both gender categories differ in the frequencies with which they are used as masculine or feminine forms: médic-o/médic-a ‘doctor’ (m.)/‘doctor’ (f.) is a clear example of a masculine-dominant pair, whereas enfermer-o/enfermer-a ‘nurse’ (m.)/ ‘nurse’ (f.) is a feminine-dominant pair. Adult readers of Spanish are faster in recognizing feminine forms of feminine-dominant pairs, and masculine forms of masculine-dominant pairs (Dominguez, Alberto, Fernando Cuetos & Juan Segui. 1999. The processing of grammatical gender and number in Spanish. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 28(5). 485–498). This study aims to test the dominant frequency effect in third and sixth grade children, as well as in adults. Children were faster in recognizing masculine forms in masculine-dominant pairs, but not feminine forms in feminine-dominant pairs. Adults, by contrast, tended to respond faster to higher frequency words, irrespective of gender, indicating that they have independent representations for both genders. The dominance of masculine forms in children could be a consequence of the statistical distribution of gender dominance and regularity in Spanish. The experience of skilled adult readers seems to make them less dependent on this statistical pattern

Dominance (genetics) · Grammatical Gender · Linguistics · Noun · Gender Studies in Language · Philosophy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Writing and Handwriting Education

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