The Role of Gender Category in Homonym Formation in the German Language
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69760/aghel.0250050009Keywords:
German language, grammatical gender, homonymy, lexical semantics, disambiguation, corpus linguisticsAbstract
This study investigates the role of grammatical gender in the formation, differentiation, and stabilization of homonyms in the German language. Drawing on lexicographic sources, corpus data, and theoretical literature, the analysis demonstrates that gender functions as a key structural mechanism that enables phonologically identical nouns to maintain distinct meanings. Homonymous sets such as Band, See, and Teil show that gender provides essential morphological cues that prevent lexical merger and support semantic clarity. Diachronic evidence further reveals that gender often preserves distinctions between historically unrelated roots that have converged phonetically over time. In contemporary usage, gender agreement within noun phrases offers redundant syntactic signals that facilitate efficient disambiguation, aligning with psycholinguistic findings on gender-based lexical access. The results highlight the broader linguistic, cognitive, and pedagogical significance of gender as a central organizing principle within the German lexicon.
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