The reduction of the tripartite grammatical gender system in Swedish to a dichotomy of neuter and common gender (as a result of the merging of the masculine and feminine) gave rise to the demonstrative den developing into an anaphoric 3rd person pronoun, which is a substitute for inanimate non-neutral substantives. Thus, a new semantic category ”personality non-personality” has emerged, which is manifested by the 3rd person H-/D-pronouns (han, hon / den, det) and by congruence markers for utrum / neutrum in adjectives. Furthermore, the functional expansion of the weak adjective ending -e (originally the weak masculine singular), as well as the use of den in case of semantic gender neutralisation, reveal a tendency to express personal (animate) genus commune by analogy with and in contrast to non-personal (inanimate) common gender.
Chekalina Elena. ON THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN GRAMMATICAL AND SEMANTIC GENDER IN SWEDISH