GENUS ALTERNANS AND NEUTER GENDER IN ISTRO-ROMANIAN: THE ROLE OF BILINGUALISM

The relation between the genus alternansand the neuter in Istro-Romanian is not a mere problem of nomenclature, but a manifestation of bilngualism peculiar to the contact situation in which Istro-Romanian and Croatian/Cakavian have long found themselves. The adaptation and the morphosyntactic behaviour of Croatian and Cakavian neuter loans in -ovary in diachrony, revealing how autochthonous morphology gradually yields to the influence of the dominant language. This is manifested in modern Istro-Romanian not just through the fact that neuter loans in -oretain their morphosyntactic behaviour (if a neuter noun is borrowed, most probably it will keep not only its ending but also its agreement pattern), but also as interference effects (even nouns of Romance origin present a Croatian/Cakavian type of agreement with a neuter form in -oof the adjective, indefinite article, etc.) when the corresponding Croatian/Cakavian word is neuter