This study of gender was conceived when I first took up the position of lecturer in linguistics at the University of Tiibingen in 1975. My particular in­ terest in gender arose out of the work with German children and adults con­ ducted in the context of preparing my doctoral dissertation for the University of York; my position at the University of Tiibingen has given me the opportunity to carry out the necessary research in both Germany and Britain. The empirical investigations reported in this study were begun in my first year in Tiibingen and continued over a period of 7 years. In this connection, I would like to express my thanks to the staff and pupils of all the schools who participated in the testing: Kindergarten Waldhauser-Ost, Kindergarten Winkelwiese, Grundschule Wanne, Grundschule Waldhauser-Ost, and Albert Schweitzer Schule (Tiibingen); Somerford Junior and Infants School and Twynham Junior and Infants School (Christchurch, GB); Burdyke Infants, Badger Hill Junior and Infants School and Joseph Rowntree Junior School (York, GB). Thanks must also go to the families of Georg, Hanna and Gisela and of course to the children themselves, who allowed the intrusion of recording equipment so regularly into their homes. I am also grateful to the staff and students of the Universities of Tfibingen, York and Manchester who cooperated in several of the investigations.

1 Gender in Linguistic Description.- Ontology and Development of Gender.- The Grammatical Status of Noun Classification Systems.- Theories of Opposition and Markedness.- 2 A Comparison of the Gender Systems in English and German.- Parts of Speech Affected by Gender.- Semantic Rules.- Morphological Rules.- Phonetic Rules.- The Interaction of the Rule Types.- Function.- Summary.- 3 Rules and Speakers' Behaviour.- The Psychological Status of Morphological and Phonetic Rules of Gender Assignment of German Nouns.- The Psychological Status of Semantic Rules of Gender Assignment.- The Psychological Status of Unmarked Terms.- Summary and Conclusions.- 4 The Acquisition of Gender in Children.- The Acquisition of Formal Rules in German.- The Acquisition of Semantic Rules in English and German.- Implications for Explanatory Theories in Child Language Acquisition ..- Summary and Conclusions.- 5 Psychological Gender.- Language and Thought.- An Investigation of the Interrelationship of Grammatical Gender and Sex Assignment in English and German.- The Testing of Sex Attributes.- Summary and Conclusions.- 6 Conclusions.- Appendices.- References.