Grammatical gender and linguistic complexity: Volume II: World-wide comparative studies

The many facets of grammatical gender remain one of the most fruitful areas of linguistic
research, and pose fascinating questions about the origins and development of complex-
ity in language. The present work is a two-volume collection of 13 chapters (plus an in-
troductory chapter in each volume) on the topic of grammatical gender seen through the
prism of linguistic complexity. The contributions discuss what counts as complex and/or
simple in grammatical gender systems and whether the distribution of gender systems
across the world’s languages relates to the language ecology and social history of speech
communities. Contributors demonstrate how the complexity of gender systems can be
studied synchronically, both in individual languages and over large cross-linguistic sam-
ples, and diachronically, by exploring how gender systems change over time. Volume two
consists of three chapters providing diachronic and typological case studies, followed by
a final chapter discussing old and new theoretical and empirical challenges in the study
of the dynamics of gender complexity.
This volume is preceded by volume I: General issues and specific studies, which, in ad-
dition to three chapters on the theoretical foundations of gender complexity, contains six
chapters on grammatical gender and complexity in individual languages and language
families of Africa, New Guinea, and South Asia.