Die morphosyntaktische Integration neuer Gendersuffixe: Eine korpusbasierte Analyse deutschsprachiger Pressetexte

Abstract

This study presents corpus-based empirical insights into a phenomenon that has largely been discussed on a theoretical level: the morphological and syntactic behavior of new gender suffixes in German. Drawing on a large, manually annotated dataset of personal nouns with word-internal gender symbols (22,407 types; 225,255 tokens), it systematically examines their morphosyntactic integration. The analysis supports the suffixal status of -*in from a distributional perspective, as it almost exclusively attaches to derivational bases. With the exception of slash variants—which often result in ungrammatical formations—the majority of forms conform to the rules of German derivational morphology. Productivity measures indicate that gender suffixes have already established routinized patterns, while also displaying expansion into new lexical bases. Language users tend to avoid complex syntactic embeddings, favoring plural forms (97 % of tokens) and bare singular noun phrases (38.3 % of singulars). When extended singular noun phrases are used, modifiers are marked by a gender symbol in the majority of cases (37.8 % of singulars), while feminine agreement appears less frequently (23.5 %). The data also reveal considerable variation in the realization and combination of gendered modifiers. While there is a general tendency toward the use of the same gender symbol both in the heads and the dependents (jede*r Bürger*in), mixed patterns occur (jede/r Fotograf:in). On the semantic level, the study provides initial empirical insights into the referential properties of singular forms: only 5.6 % refer explicitly to non-binary individuals, suggesting that most uses are hyperonymical. By offering the first large-scale empirical account of gender suffixes in German, the study contributes to ongoing theoretical debates and highlights both routinized, well-integrated patterns as well as peripheral areas characterized by variability. Rare constructions—such as extended singular noun phrases with gender symbols—can now be more clearly delineated as marginal phenomena, especially when contrasted with the otherwise routinized use of gender suffixes in professional journalistic contexts.