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Mass versus count. Pronominal gender in regional varieties of Germanic languages

This article explores systems of pronominal gender, and partly also gender systems in general, across several regional varieties of Germanic languages, where the semantic basis underlying the distribution of animate (masculine, feminine) and inanimate neuter pronouns (gender) corresponds to the well known categorization of nomináis in mass versus count (the hammer he versus the milk it). Such systems are attested in regional varieties of English, Danish, Dutch, Frisian and German. It will be argued that the existence of such systems and their relationship to the systems of pronominal gender found in the standard varieties can be understood and explained against the background of the scale or hierarchy of individuation. A brief cross-linguistic survey complements the discussion of Germanic dialects.