Semantic markedness in gender opposition, blocking and fossilization

Abstract The semantics of natural gender in animate nouns is modeled in the framework of bidirectional Optimality Theory (OT). This allows for the interaction of lexical, conceptual and contextual constraints and for a straightforward treatment of the effect of blocking in this domain. Two versions of bidirectional OT are discussed and related to each other in terms of Blutner’s (2007) notion of fossilization.