Gender Variation of Indeclinable Nouns in Dictionaries

Abstract

The article elaborates on grammatical gender variation of inanimate indeclinable nouns. The analysis was performed on modern dictionaries and defines the main ways of representing gender by lexicographic means. The analysis identifies different types of variability of noun gender, deduces factors that cause this variability in each type and reveals main linguistic causes that provoke competition among these factors. This competition may be observed in one dictionary entry of both monosemantic and polysemantic words, as well as between several dictionaries, which may identify gender qualities of the noun in different ways, basing on different factors. The analysis of grammatical variation indeclinable nouns defines the direction of dynamic processes in grammatical system of the modern Russian language. Refs 19. Tables 5.