Tom Priestly, On a Recent Article on Developments in Gender in Slovene Dialects 303 
Zapiski/Notes
On a Recent Article on Developments in
Gender in Slovene Dialects.
A Personal Note
 My thirty-odd years of linguistic research in the village of Sele in Austrian Carinthia 
produced few publications in what can be called ‘traditional’ linguistics (as opposed to 
sociolinguistics). What I consider my two best non-sociolinguistic articles about the 
village dialect were published, six years after my first period of fieldwork, in Priestly 
1984a, 1984b; the simple fact that they were accepted for Slavistična revija made me 
proud, and confirmed my suspicion and my hope that I had made a successful and useful 
analysis. In them I described what may be first actual instance, and is at least (to my 
knowledge) the first recorded instance, of the complete loss of the neuter gender in any 
dialect of any Slavic language (on minor qualifications about the term ‘complete loss’, 
see below). When, therefore, I recently learned of the publication of an article with the 
title “Lingvogeografska obdelava spola v ednini: samostalniki srednjega spola na -o v 
slovenskih narečjih” (Smole 2006), and in the very same Slavistična revija, I was surely 
one of the most interested of all its readers. I was very disappointed to find that Smole 
— who, I must assume, knew of those two articles — did not mention them.
 One may speculate on her reason(s) for this omission. One justifiable reason would be 
that the volume has a limited purpose, namely to showcase specifically Slovene linguistic 
research, and that any discussion of work by others would be out of place. This is indeed 
the main aim of the volume: its editor speaks of “nujnost širše mednarodne predstavitve 
aktualnega slovenističnega jezikoslovja” (Vidovič Muha 2006: 1); and note the title of 
her preliminary remarks, “Slovensko jezikoslovje danes.” However, of the 23 authors 
in the volume, all but one refrain from treating their subjects in an academic vacuum, 
without any reference to non-Slovenes.1 Smole herself lists one non-Slovene (Bernštejn) 
in her ‘references’ and refers to two more (Tesnière, Greenberg) in her footnotes. This 
does not appear to be her reason, therefore. Further: few discussions of changes in number 
systems would not profit from reference to what is surely one of the basic handbooks on 
this subject, the authoritative Corbett (1991); and this is also ignored. Note that Corbett 
emphasizes the loss of the neuter in selščina (1991: 315, and again in Corbett 2006: 
240).
Another justifiable reason would be that my two articles in the 1984 Slavistična 
revija do not deserve a mention. I now briefly suggest some arguments against this.
 1 Indeed, the average number of non-Slovenes listed by the authors in their references is close 
to 8 each. 
304 Slovenski jezik – Slovene Linguistic Studies 6 (2007) 
1. Smole correctly points out that no account of developments in gender can 
be properly made without consideration of the interplay between the system 
of genders and the system of numbers: “Razprostranjenost spremembe spola 
oziroma prehod v ženski (feminizacija) ali moški spol (maskulinizacija) je 
odvisen tudi od števila” (2006: 127). She admits that she does not intend 
to do this, however, since her aim is to present the developments in the 
singular only, “z namenom predstaviti projekt Slovenskega lingvističnega 
atlasa” (loc. cit.). There is no cause to object: however, this is one place 
where Smole should have cited Priestly (1984b) in a footnote, for this is 
precisely what I did in that article: reconstruct the chronology of the loss 
of the neuter (with implications for the other two genders) in selščina in all 
three numbers — a typically complex structuralist reconstruction, since it 
involves six phonological and three grammatical changes.2 
2. Gender is not evident only in nominal endings; English for example has 
gender that is grammatically overt only in pronouns. Smole correctly points 
this problem out, too (2006: 128, especially footnote 12) and notes that if the 
materials on the Slovenski lingvistični atlas [SLA] had not been deficient, 
data from adjectival and verbal agreement would have been adduced. Again, 
there are no grounds for complaint — except that, again, reference to Priestly 
(1984a, in this instance) would have been useful. In that article I emphasize 
that selščina must very clearly be analyzed as having lost the neuter gender 
because every single noun agrees with adjectives and the l-form of verbs 
either in the masculine or in the feminine but in no other form; and, in 
for example the singular, no single noun can be referred to pronominally 
except by masculine ɔ̀n or by feminine ɔ ́na — a fact which I proved using 
experimental phonetics to support auditory analysis.
3. Smole’s article exemplifies what may be termed a survey: she traces the fate 
of six originally neuter nouns in -o across the spectrum of all the Slovene 
dialects that form the basis for the SLA. This is valuable work, and her map 
is a useful one; nevertheless, analysis in breadth has to be supplemented by 
analyses in depth; “za dobro morfološko … obdelavo slovenskih narečij bi 
bilo nujno večje število monografskih opisov posameznih govorov” (2006: 
128–129). And my own synchronic analysis was precisely one such (though 
far from monographic): I analyzed about 100 originally-neuter nouns.3 
My analysis, if correct, demonstrates that the loss of the neuter gender is 
complex: I classified developments in eleven different groups, depending on 
 2 This reconstruction also resulted in my hypothesis that the name of the village was origi-
nally a dual form, corresponding to the fact that there were two largest centres of settlement 
(pri Cerkvi and pri Terklu) belonged to two different medieval bishoprics (see Priestly 1996). 
This would make the village linguistically unique in a second way; but the villagers have not 
accepted my proposal to refer to it in the dual, “Sele sta lepa vas med gorami,” and continue 
the traditional “Sele so lepa vas med gorami.”
 3 “About,” because the number is open-ended due to derivative suffixes: I included only 
two nouns with endings corresponding to SLS -ovje, for example.
Tom Priestly, On a Recent Article on Developments in Gender in Slovene Dialects 305 
the morphology and the syntactic agreement (see points ## 2 and 4) of the 
contemporary nouns.
4. Smole notes that both masculinization and femininization occur in Slovene 
dialects. She correctly includes “jugovzhodni rožanski”, i.e., the area where 
selščina is spoken, as a dialect with masculinization of neuter nouns. Her 
map shows the general areas in which each of these phenomena occur; and 
it appears that only in one small area (at the juncture between rovtarski and 
primorski dialects, see 2006: 132) are the two phenomena co-occurrent. Is 
this true only with reference to Smole’s six -o nouns? In selščina, of the 100 
originally neuter nouns which I analyzed, twelve have become feminine. 
Further, not all of these 12 feminine selščina nouns have4 the -a ending which 
Smole, following Ramovš, cites as showing that analogy is involved in this 
development (2006: 130). Indeed, the exceptional femininization of about 
one-eighth of the selščina nouns presented me with a conundrum for which 
only relatively recently did I devise a (possible, but uncertain) explanation 
(see Priestly 2006).
 Finally, note that just as “masculinization” and “femininization” can be partial 
or complete (a consideration beyond the scope of Smole’s article), so also “loss” may 
not always be absolute. In selščina, there are what are sometimes called “frozen” 
(now best considered “idiomatic”) remnants of the neuter gender: (a) the phrases u 
pədíəli jútər, u tóri jútər, u sríədi jútər “on Monday morning, on Tuesday morning, on 
Wednesday morning”) and so on; (b) the word unέ (Standard Literary Slovene [SLS] 
oné); (c) the word usέ (SLS vse); (d) the ambigene noun lέət; and (e) (and is this not 
an idiomatic remnant of the neuter in other varieties of Slovene too?) the predicative 
(povednikov) forms (on the special role of which see Corbett 1991: 216, 2006: 97). 
See Priestly (1984a: 44–46) for reasons why these five remnants do not amount to 
enough evidence to declare that the neuter is still “alive” in selščina. These details do 
emphasize the need for many more in-depth treatments of individual dialects.
 It would be pretentious to suggest that Priestly (2006), published in Taiwan just one 
year ago, should have been mentioned by Smole. I think, however, that my suggestion 
is justified that she should have mentioned my two articles from 1984. Above all, and 
if nothing else, the mere fact should be stressed that selščina must, until evidence to 
the contrary is found, be considered the first (and only?) Slavic dialect to have lost 
its neuter gender completely and thus join Indo-European languages such as Breton, 
Latvian and Kashmiri in having a simple masculine/feminine gender distinction in 
all grammatical categories (see now Priestly 1984c). Smole’s omission of this unique 
fact about the dialect spoken in Sele is, above all, to be much deplored.
 4 Or, could theoretically have this ending, since some of them do not occur in the singu-
lar.
306 Slovenski jezik – Slovene Linguistic Studies 6 (2007) 
Bibliography
Corbett, Greville G. 1991. Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
– –. 2006. Agreement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Priestly, Tom. 1984a. “O popolni izgubi srednjega spola v selščini: enodobni opis,” 
Slavistična revija 32/1: 37–47.
– –. 1984b. “O popolni izgubi srednjega spola v selščini: raznodobna rekonstrukcija,” 
Slavistična revija 32/4: 357–372.
– –. 1984c. “On ‘drift’ in Indo-European gender systems,” Journal of Indo-European 
Studies 11: 339–364.
– –. 1996. “Ob imenu vasi ‘Sele’,” 117–118 in Koledar Mohorjeve Družbe v Celovcu 
za navadno leto 1997, Klagenfurt: Mohorjeva založba.
– –. 2006. “Gender change, local markedness, and speculations on the dual,” 409–423 
in Grace E. Wiebe, Gary Libben, Tom Priestly, Ron Smyth and H. Samuel Wang, 
eds., Phonology, Morphology and the Empirical Imperative: Papers in Honour 
of Bruce Derwing, Taipei City: Crane Publishing.
Smole, Vera. 2006. “Lingvogeografska obdelava spola v ednini: samostalniki 
srednjega spola na -o v slovenskih narečjih,” Slavistična revija 54 (posebna 
številka): 125–135 [English translation by Joel Smith, pp. 492–503].
Vidovič Muha, Ada. 2006. “Slovensko jezikoslovje danes. Spremna beseda,” 
Slavistična revija 54 (posebna številka): 1–4.
Prispelo februarja 2007 Tom Priestly
Received February 2007 Alberta