Accordo di genere e contatto linguistico nella koiné egiziana

The study is dedicated to gender agreement in Egyptian Greek koiné : it illustrates examples in which feminine nouns are connected with adjectives inflected in masculine or neuter gender ; similar facts are clearly attested in agreement of participles with nouns. Moreover, in Latin loanwords found in Egyptian documents, metaplasm of nouns from feminine to masculine or neuter gender is largely common, and is not explainable with reference to the gender evolution in Vulgar Latin. On the basis of these data, a reorganization of gender category in Egyptian koiné is proposed, and a new ‘semantic’ pattern is reconstructed for agreement of adjectives and participles, which take the masculine form in agreement with nouns having animate referent, and neuter form in connection with inanimate referent nouns. A similar reorganization is clearly attested in Coptic, which can be the source of the innovation.