Комбиновани род и двородност у парадигматској структури именица на - а у српском књижевном језику и у црногорским говорима

Combined Gender and Adjectiveness in the Paradigmatic Structure of Nouns in - A in the Serbian Literary Language and in the Dialects of Montenegro

After introductory remarks on gender as a grammatical category, the paper discusses nouns ending in -a with the meaning of occupation, title, duty, and bearers of qualities. Special attention is paid to the relationship between grammatical gender and the semantics of gender, its instability and predictability. The article discusses nouns ending in -a with combined gender and mixed gender nouns and their paradigmatic and congruent indicators in the Serbian literary language, in the dialects of Montenegro and in the Vuk’s language. The instability of grammatical gender is one of the grammatical-normative problems of the Serbian language. Cases of vacillating gender of nouns ending in -a in the paradigmatic structure of the same noun and the so-called dual gender are common. The nominative is the central case in the paradigmatic system, but gender predictability is impossible based on it. But the morphological symbol of gender is not enough. Paradigmatic and congruence indicators must be considered in combination with the semantics of nouns. In today's Serbian literary language, nouns that mean titles and occupations in the singular are masculine, and in the plural they are feminine. For both singular and plural gendered nouns, the indicators are either in the masculine form, if referring to male persons, or in the feminine form, if referring to female persons. Vuk's language shows an unstable situation. In the same sentence we have now one type of congruence, now another. There is a distinct unevenness in dialects in Montenegro. In some dialects, the masculine gender predominates even among nouns that mean the bearer of a trait, while nouns that mean occupational titles are mostly masculine.