Let's assume now that the location of the feminizing head does not change. Then the frequency decline of feminine adjectival agreement may correlate with the general decline in choosing gender mismatch strategy. Ф The comparison with data from [Graudina et al., 1976] concerning predicate agreement shows that the frequency of feminization is decreasing with о masculine agreement becoming more frequent and increasing from 4.57% 2 up to 25.21%.
Within Pesetsky's analysis it remains unclear why determiners and high adjectives demonstrate feminine agreement to the same extent. We have already noticed that determiners and high adjectives rarely disagree (7). This probably means that demonstrative and possessive pronouns and high adjectives have the same effect as two high adjectives regarding referential agreement (2а). That is why the merge of Ж between two adnominal constituents (excluding low adjectives) is troublesome. Consequently, the number of possible positions for the feminizing head is decreasing to two: right above low adjectives and above DP. In other words, the gender switch occurs at the level of DP. Therefore, the idea of a feminizing head becomes superfluous. Referential agreement corresponds to the DP projection which functions as a referential semantics domain, where gender switch occurs. This idea is implied in approaches suggested by [Lyutikova, 2015] and [Pereltsvaig, 2015].
Pesetsky argues that the advantage of the feminizing head approach leans upon the idea of optionality of the head that introduces semantic features. This means that the account is purely syntactic and is not connected to the semantics of feminine gender or the morphology. The current study has shown that the phenomenon of gender mismatch in Russian correlates with the referential domain. Therefore, semantic component cannot be detached from the analysis of such phenomenon.
To sum up, we have discussed the phenomenon of gender mismatch in Russian. In this paper I provided both synchronic and diachronic estimation of gender mismatch frequency in Russian. I have also tested the approaches against experimental data.
The survey has shown that native speakers continue choosing gender mismatch strategy for adnominals in speech production. It would be interesting to find out how native speakers evaluate different agreement patterns; however, this is the matter of future research.
References
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