Table of Contents -- 1. Introduction 11 -- 1.1 A gap in linguistic gender scholarship 11 -- 1.2 Gender marking in Old English 12 -- 1.2.1 Sex and gender 12 -- 1.2.2 Nominal forms 13 -- 1.2.3 Agreement 13 -- 1.2.3.1 Agreement between modifiers and their head nouns 14 -- 1.2.3.2 Agreement between anaphoric pronouns and their antecedent nouns 14 -- 1.3 The loss of grammatical gender 15 -- 1.3.1 Traditional views and their defects 15 -- 1.3.2 The explanation of the first defect 16 -- 1.3.3 The explanation of the second defect: a needfor an analysis of unhistorical gender assignment within the noun phrase 17 -- 1.4 A short review of research on unhistorical gender assignment within the noun phrase 18 -- 1.5 Texts 20 -- 1.6 Aims and organization 22 -- 2. Historical and unhistorical gender forms of demonstratives and adjectives 25 -- 2.1 Introduction 25 -- 2.2 The simple demonstrative (Old English se/seo/þæt) 26 -- 2.2.1 The distribution of forms 26 -- 2.2.2 Nominative singular masculine (Old English se) 29 -- 2.2.3 Nominative and accusative singular feminine (Old English seo/þa) 35 -- 2.2.4 Nominative and accusative singular neuter (Old English þæt) 38 -- 2.2.5 Genitive singular masculine and neuter (Old English þæs) 43 -- 2.2.6 Genitive and dative singular feminine (Old English þære) 49 -- 2.2.7 Dative singular masculine and neuter (Old English þæm, þam) 51 -- 2.2.8 Accusative singular masculine (Old English þone) 54 -- 2.2.9 Post-prepositional singular forms 57 -- 2.2.9.1 Masculine 57 -- 2.2.9.2 Feminine 61 -- 2.2.9.3 Neuter 65 -- 2.2.10 Summary 69 -- 2.3 The compound demonstrative (Old English þes/þeos/þis) 70 -- 2.3.1 The distribution of forms 70 -- 2.3.2 Nominative singular masculine (Old English þes) 71 -- 2.3.3 Nominative and accusative singular feminine (Old English þeos/þas) 72.

2.3.4 Nominative and accusative singular neuter (Old English þis) 74 -- 2.3.5 Genitive singular masculine and neuter (Old English þisses) 77 -- 2.3.6. Genitive and dative singular feminine (Old English þisse, þissere) 77 -- 2.3.7 Dative singular masculine and neuter (Old English þissum) 78 -- 2.3.8 Accusative singular masculine (Old English þisne) 79 -- 2.3.9 Post-prepositional singular forms 80 -- 2.3.9.1 Masculine 80 -- 2.3.9.2 Feminine 82 -- 2.3.9.3 Neuter 83 -- 2.3.10 Summary 85 -- 2.4 Strong adjectives 86 -- 2.4.1 The distribution of forms 86 -- 2.4.2 Genitive singular masculine and neuter (Old English -es) 88 -- 2.4.3 Genitive and dative singular feminine(Old English -re) 88 -- 2.4.4 Dative singular masculine and neuter (Old English -um) 89 -- 2.4.5 Accusative singular forms (the masculine form: Old English -ne) 90 -- 2.4.6 Post-prepositional singular forms 93 -- 2.4.6.1 Masculine 93 -- 2.4.6.2 Feminine 95 -- 2.4.6.3 Neuter 96 -- 2.4.7 Summary 97 -- 2.5 Deviations from historical gender agreement 98 -- 3. Innovative attributive morphology as a case marker 99 -- 3.1 Introduction 99 -- 3.2 The ending -es as a genitive case marker 100 -- 3.2.1 Singular contexts 100 -- 3.2.2 Plural contexts 102 -- 3.2.3 Competing forms 103 -- 3.2.4 Summary 104 -- 3.3 The ending -Vn as a dative case marker 104 -- 3.3.1 Numerical superiority 104 -- 3.3.2 Ambiguous number marking 106 -- 3.3.3 Variant forms 109 -- 3.3.4 Summary 112 -- 3.4 The ending -ne as an accusative case marker 113 -- 3.4.1 Singular contexts 113 -- 3.4.2 Plural contexts 115 -- 3.4.3 Variant forms 115 -- 3.4.4 'Masculinization' 116 -- 3.4.5 Summary 118 -- 3.5 Unhistorical -re 118 -- 3.6 Implications of register variation 120 -- 3.7 Summary and conclusions 121 -- 4. The development of a tripartite system of defining words, the, that, and this 123 -- 4.1 Introduction 123.

4.2 The differentiation of the and that 124 -- 4.2.1 Indeclinable þV 124 -- 4.2.2 Indeclinable þVt 126 -- 4.2.3 Tentative explanation for the differentiation 127 -- 4.2.4 The Scandinavian and French influence 131 -- 4.3 The development of indeclinable this 132 -- 4.4 Summary and conclusions 134 -- 5. Conclusion: implications for the grammatical category of gender 135 -- Appendix A: Old English paradigms 139 -- A.1 Nominal endings 139 -- A.1.1 Strong declensions 139 -- A.1.2 The weak declension 139 -- A.1.3 Minor declensions 140 -- A.2 The simple demonstrative 140 -- A.3 The compound demonstrative 141 -- A.4 Strong adjective endings 141 -- A.5 Weak adjective endings 142 -- A.6 Third-person personal pronouns 142 -- Appendix B: historical and unhistorical attributive forms constructed with a particular noun 143 -- References 175.