Gender encoding on hybrid nouns in Bosnian\slash Croatian\slash Serbian:Experimental evidence from ellipsis

In this paper, we report the results of an experimental study on the possibility of
gender mismatches with ellipsis of a particular type of hybrid nouns in Bosnian /
Croatian / Serbian (henceforth: BCS). Using agreement mismatches under NP ellip-
sis as a diagnostic for gender feature specification of hybrid nouns, we show that
these nouns disallow agreement mismatches under NP ellipsis if natural gender
(and a presupposition that it introduces) is present either in the antecedent or the
ellipsis site. We argue that natural gender feature (masculine in our study) can op-
tionally be present on the hybrid noun, and that its inclusion in ellipsis contexts
leads to a violation of the standard identity requirement between the antecedent
and the ellipsis site, namely Merchant’s (2001) e-givenness.