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.