Gender assignment in Old Norse

This article presents a set of gender assignment rules for Old Norse, which generates gender for the nouns found in Fritznerʹs Ordbog over Det gamle norske Sprog (Fritzner, 1973). The rule set covers approximately 22 500 of the 26 900 nouns in this dictionary, or 81%. If final -r is taken as a sufficient criterion for masculine (i.e. if we do not ask why the -r is there), the percentage rises to 25 000 of 26 900, or 93%. The rules are semantic, morphological and phonological. The article argues that Old Norse has neuter as its default gender, and it thereby supports Steinmetz’ (1985, 1986, 2001) Great Gender Shift model. Contrary to Steinmetz, it is here argued that the Germanic Gender Shift cannot be seen as a result of the loss of nom.sg. -r alone, but must be seen as a result of the weak status of the default n(euter) gender, as opposed to the default masculine gender of Modern Norwegian. The weak status of neuter is suggested to be a result of neuter being both numerically small and outside the semantic core of the system (where masculine and feminine denoted living beings of opposite sex), and the unstable situation opening for the shift in default gender is due not only to the loss of -r, but to the marginal position of neuter and to the changes in the declension class system of Old Norse.