LOANWORD NEOLOGY: THE MORPHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION OF GENDER IN LEXICAL NEOLOGISMS BORROWED FROM ENGLISH

In this paper our intention is to offer new guidelines to help outline the criteria used to assign gender to words borrowed from other languages in which this grammatical category does not exist. To this end, we have analysed 631 different contexts containing substantive nouns in English recently incorporated into Spanish, which have not been orthographically adapted to the language. For the analysis of the gender assigned to the nouns, we have used the criterion of collocational and combinatory syntax, based on the agreement of the noun with other words having different endings that appear in the same context. Together with a semantic criterion, taking into account the nature of the referent. This was determined by finding its Spanish equivalent or by a definitory paraphrasing. We confirm our hypothesis that English nouns with animate referents present in Spanish the gender of this and the inanimate ones, that of their Spanish equivalent or that which is inferred from their definitory paraphrasing.