The Enigmatic Morphology of Spanish azúcar and the “New Feminine el”

While most Spanish nouns are assigned either masculine or feminine gender, there are a few that are ambiguous, that is, that may be either masculine or feminine. Ramsey (1956:33) lists the following nouns of ambiguous gender: azúcar, calor, color, cutis, dote, fin, linde, mar, margen, origen, pro, puente, sartén, and tilde. These nouns will appear as either masculine or feminine according to various factors, such as the region, social register, and stylistic context in which they appear. It is also worth noting that at least some of these ambiguous nouns will occur as either masculine or feminine in the speech of the same individual.

A search of the Corpus de referencia del español actual of the Real Academia Española (henceforth CREA) yields the following occurrences of these ambiguous nouns as they appear with either the definite article el or la, shown in (1):

(1) Ambiguous Nouns in CREA (1975–2004)^[1]

Number of OccurrencesNumber of Documents

el azúcar 2,213 (99%) 707 (98%)

la azúcar 15 (1%) 13 (2%)

el calor 5,466 (99%) 2,552 (99%)

la calor 44 (1%) 31 (1%)

el color 5,836 (99%) 2,640 (99%)

la color 34 (1%) 28 (1%)

el dote 4 (5%) 4 (7%)

la dote 79 (95%) 51 (93%)

el fin 22,165 (99.95%) 11,736 (99.93%)

la fin 10 (.05%) 8 (.07%)

el linde 14 (20%) 14 (25%)

la linde 57 (80%) 43 (75%)

el mar 12,593 (91%) 5,055 (90%)

la mar 1,221 (9%) 573 (10%)

el margen 6,458 (96%) 4,317 (97%)

la margen 248 (4%) 150 (3%)

el puente 3,263 (99.8%) 1,842 (99.6%)

la puente 7 (.2%) 7 (.4%)

el sartén 34 (7%) 17 (9%)

la sartén 444 (93%) 176 (91%)

el tilde 2 (17%) 1 (10%)

la tilde 10 (83%) 9 (90%)

While all of the ambiguous nouns in (1) appear to be very similar to one another in that one of the variants occurs more frequently than the other, though to varying degrees, the noun azúcar is unlike any of the others in that its appearance with the definite article el does not guarantee that it is masculine. Of the 2,213 occurrences of the variant el azúcar in CREA, many appear modified by a feminine adjective. One finds, for example: el azúcar blanca, el azúcar morena, el azúcar negra, el azúcar prieta, el azúcar rubia, el azúcar granulada, el azúcar procesada, el azúcar pulverizada, el azúcar refinada, el azúcar importada, el azúcar cubana, el azúcar dominicana, el azúcar puertorriqueña, etc. In fact, the variant el azúcar appears more frequently immediately followed by a feminine adjective than by a masculine one, as shown in (2), such that these structures cannot simply be deemed sporadic errors of agreement:

(2) Occurrences of el azúcar Modified as Feminine vs. Masculine in CREA (1975–2004)

Number of OccurrencesPercentage of Occurrences

el azúcar + feminine adjective: 112 (63%)

el azúcar + masculine adjective: 65 (37%)

One also finds other examples in CREA, not included in (2), in which el azúcar is modified by a feminine adjective that does not immediately follow the noun, such as those shown in (3):

(3) El único producto que tenía acogida favorable en el mercado norteamericano era el azúcar, que también se encontraba, según indicamos,sujeta a impuestos. (1987 Puerto Rico, Blanca G. Silvestrini / Luque de Sánchez, Historia de Puerto Rico: trayectoria de un pueblo; CREA)

En una cacerolita pequeña ponerel azúcar y llevar al fuego hasta formar un caramelo, cuidando que no se pase, es decir que no tome color marrón oscuro, pues se poneamarga ...

(1990 Argentina, Lila Bonfiglioli de Wehberg, El arte de sazonar con hierbas y especias; CREA)

En los próximos anuncios te subiré el café -respondió Laura sin mirarle-; te lo voy a poner muy azucarado, queel azúcar esbuena para estas situaciones de esfuerzo.

(1988 Madrid, Juan José Millás, El desorden de tu nombre; CREA)

The appearance of the noun azúcar with the definite article el, but modified by a feminine adjective, makes this noun the most enigmatic ambiguous noun of the Spanish language as far as its morphological structure is concerned.

At first glance it appears as though we are faced with a noun whose first half is masculine, thus calling for the masculine definite article, but whose second half is feminine, thus calling for a feminine adjective, as depicted in (4):

(4) azúcar → azú- (masc.) + -car (fem.) → el azúcar morena

While such an analysis may seem preposterous, Eddington and Hualde (2008), following Janda and Varela-García (1991), suggest something very similar for nouns such as el agua, el hacha, el águila, etc. They conclude that rather than having one gender, i.e., feminine, and a phonologically-conditioned definite article, i.e., el, these nouns are “hermaphroditic”, or “grammatical hermaphrodites”, being at once masculine and feminine, and are therefore preceded by either masculine or feminine modifiers, but followed by only feminine ones, e.g., el agua fría, este/esta agua sucia, aquel/aquellaagua clara, etc.^[2] Although the noun azúcar in structures such as el azúcar morena may initially appear to be of the “hermaphroditic” type as described by Eddington and Hualde (2008) and Janda and Varela-García (1991), it differs from these in two very important respects. First, adjectives that follow azúcar may also be masculine, e.g., el azúcar moreno, whereas in the case of the so-called “hermaphroditic” nouns, they may not, e.g., **el agua sucio.^[3] Second, all “hermaphroditic” nouns analyzed in Eddington and Hualde (2008) begin with tonic /a/, while azúcar does not.

Moreover, speakers invariably pronominalize structures such as el azúcar morena with the feminine direct object pronoun la, as shown in (5), rather than with vacillation between lo and la, thus revealing that the noun of this structure is indeed feminine, and not both masculine and feminine, i.e., “hermaphroditic”:

(5) El azúcar morena se endurecerá si nola guardas apropiadamente. En lugar de tirarla a la basura continúa leyendo estos tres pasos para aprender cómo guardarla y así evitar que se endurezca... No abras el paquete de azúcar morena hasta quela vayas a utilizar... Si ya se te endurecióel azúcar morena, envuélvela en papel aluminio y ponla cinco minutos en el horno a 300 grados Fahrenheit. Cuando ladescubras estará suave y lista para emplearla en cualquier receta... Para volverla a utilizar debes esperar que se descongele... Otra opción para suavizarla es poner una rodaja de pan adentro del contenedor. Tomará algunos días pero nola tendrás que tirar...

(“Cómo evitar que el azúcar morena se endurezca”; http://latinguru.com)

One can even find examples of el azúcar, when not immediately followed by a feminine adjective, pronominalized with la, as seen in the examples in (6), revealing that for many speakers, the structure el azúcar, in and of itself, despite its masculine-looking article, is feminine:

(6) Pensar queel azúcar no engorda: disminuye su consumo o sustitúyelapor edulcorante.

(2004 Santo Domingo, Hoy Digital. Suplemento Salud: “Alimentos que adelgazan y cuidan tu salud”; CREA)

“Hemos venido a conversar con los trabajadores que han tomado el ingenio azucarero y ver la manera de sacarel azúcar para ponerla a disposición de todos los peruanos en los diversos mercados de Lima...”

(“Liberan 350 mil bolsas de azúcar en Andahuasi”; http://LaRepublica.pe)

Si se va a flamear, es recomendable esperar a que se enfríe para que no se disuelvael azúcar al echarla por encima.

(“Arroz con leche”, Recetas de cocina; http://masrecetasdecocina.wordpress.com.)

Puedes omitirel azúcar, y ponerla cuando la sirvas, así cada quien mide el dulzor ...

(“¿Cómo preparar la avena Quaker? ”; http://mx.answers.yahoo.com/question/index. N.D.)

El azúcar que se producía localmente eraladel tipo moscabado cuya cotización en el mercado internacional era inferior al del azúcar blanca y refinada.

(1987 Puerto Rico, Blanca G. Silvestrini/Luque de Sánchez, Historia de Puerto Rico: trayectoria de un pueblo; CREA)

Finally, feminine adjectives may appear before elazúcar, as seen in the examples in (7):

(7) El presidente de la Asociación de Abarroteros, Emilio Torrico, dijo que sus afiliados acordaron terminar de vendertoda el azúcar que tienen en sus almacenes a un precio entre 19 y 20 bolivianos la cuartilla.

(“Comerciantes venderán todo su stock de azúcar”, Los Tiempos (Bolivia), January 8, 2011; http://lostiempos.com)

Toda el azúcar que consumirán los hogares bolivianos en los próximos 60 días será cubierta con más de 53 mil toneladas del producto que están siendo importadas de Brasil y Colombia por el Gobierno y los ingenios azucareros del oriente boliviano, debido a que la producción nacional de 8,7 millones de quintales de 2010 está ya agotada.

(“En el país sólo se vende azúcar importada”, Los Tiempos (Bolivia), January 22, 2011; http://lostiempos.com)

Comenzamos mezclando el azúcar con una cucharada de agua, y removemos bien, hasta quetoda el azúcar se humedezca ligeramente.

(“Golosinas caseras de azúcar”, February 18, 2012; http://pequerecetas.com)

Mezcla la leche con azúcar al gusto. Mueve hasta quetoda el azúcar se disuelva.

(“Morir soñando”, January 8, 2011; http://cocinadominicana.com)

...derretida el azúcar en una cacerola puesta en el fogón...

(1986 Venezuela, Guillermo Morón, El gallo de las espuelas de oro; CREA)

The feminine modifiers toda and derretida in these examples clearly reveal that the noun azúcar in such structures is feminine, and that the el of these structures is not the masculine definite article, but an allomorph of the feminine definite article la.

We may therefore conclude that azúcar, while indeed ambiguous, i.e., masculine for some speakers (e.g., el azúcar moreno), but feminine for many more (e.g., el azúcar morena ~ laazúcar morena), cannot be characterized as “hermaphroditic”, as defined by Janda and Varela-García (1991) and Eddington and Hualde (2008). Were the noun azúcar in structures such as el azúcar morena truly “hermaphroditic”, one would expect to find pronominalization of such structures by either lo or la, rather than exclusively by the latter. Thus the noun azúcar stands in a class of its own: In the many varieties of Spanish in which it is clearly considered to be feminine,^[4] it is the only feminine noun beginning with an unstressed /a/ that appears with the allomorph el of the feminine definite article la, which is otherwise restricted to feminine nouns beginning with a stressed /a/, i.e., el azúcar (f.) [elasúkar] vs. el agua [eláγwa], el águila [eláγila], el ala [elála], el alma [elálma], el ave [eláβe], el hacha [elát∫a], el hambre [elámbre], etc.

The RAE attempts to explain the use of el with feminine azúcar as a residual case from Old Spanish of the allomorph el of the feminine definite article la, which during the Medieval period was not restricted to feminine nouns beginning with a stressed /a/:

Este sustantivo tiene, además, la particularidad de admitir su uso con la forma el del artículo y un adjetivo en forma femenina, a pesar de no comenzar por /a/ tónica: «Se ponen en una ensaladera las yemas y el azúcar molida» (Ortega Recetas [Esp. 1972]). Se trata de un resto del antiguo uso de la forma el del artículo ante sustantivos femeninos que comenzaban por vocal, tanto átona como tónica, algo que era normal en el español medieval.

(RAE, Diccionario panhispánico de dudas en línea: http://lema.rae.es/dpd/)

This allomorph, to which I shall refer henceforth as the “feminine el”, arose from the Latin feminine demonstrative ĬLLA, as shown in (8a), which first evolved to ela, and which, when appearing before nouns beginning with a consonant, regularly lost its initial /e/, thus yielding the feminine article la, but which, when appearing before nouns beginning with a vowel, underwent a dual development, losing either its final /a/, yielding the feminine el, or its initial /e/, thus yielding la, as shown in (8b):

(8) a. ĬLLA CĒNA > ela cena > (e)la cena > la cena

el(a) agua > el agua

ö

b. ĬLLA ĂQUA >ela agua >

ø

(e)la agua > la agua

el(a)arena > el arena

ö

ĬLLA ĂRĒNA > ela arena >

ø

(e)laarena > la arena

el(a) entrada > el entrada

ö

ĬLLA ĬNTRATA > elaentrada >

ø

(e)la entrada > la entrada

It appears that, initially, before nouns beginning with stressed /a/ the outcome was most frequently el, before unstressed /a/ the outcome was more frequently el than la, while before nouns beginning with any other vowel the outcome was most frequently la.^[5] Eventually, however, la was generalized to feminine nouns beginning with an unstressed /a/ or any other vowel while the feminine el was ousted from these contexts and restricted to those nouns beginning with a stressed /a/, the syntactic context in which it was initially most frequent, e.g., el agua, el águila, el ala, el alma, el ave, etc.

There is a major problem with the RAE’s explanation that the el of el azúcar morena, for example, is a residual case from Old Spanish of the use of el before any feminine noun beginning with any vowel, stressed or unstressed: In Old Spanish the noun azúcar was originally exclusively masculine, not feminine, as the textual evidence reveals. A search of CORDE yields the following occurrences shown in (9) of azúcar modified by masculine vs. feminine adjectives:

(9) Occurrences of azúcar Modified as Masculine vs. Feminine in CORDE

azúcar + masculine adjectiveazúcar + feminine adjective

1100–1300: 42 (98%) 1 (2%)

1301–1500: 261 (98.5%) 4 (1.5%)

1501–1600: 188 (94%) 12 (6%)

To 1300, there is only one example of azúcar as a feminine noun, and this appears in verse to maintain consonant rhyme, shown in (10):

(10) Los árbores que facen sombra dulz edonosa

son los santos miraclos que faz laGlorïosa,

ca son mucho más dulzes queazúcar sabrosa,

la que dan al enfermo en la cuita raviosa.

(1246–1252 Gonzalo de Berceo, Los Milagros de Nuestra Señora, ed. C. García Turza; CORDE)

Only after 1300, and in particular, after 1500, does one begin to find a significant number of bona fide examples of azúcar as a feminine noun, as seen above in (9). Given that all other examples of azúcar to 1300 are modified as masculine, one may safely conclude that when the noun azúcar entered the language from Arabic, it was originally assigned masculine gender (as one would expect from a masculine Arabic loanword into a language whose default gender is masculine), such that the el of structures such as el azúcar morena cannot be a diachronic continuation of the Old Spanish feminine el, which arose before feminine nouns (as see above in (8b) in the case of ĬLLA ĂRĒNA > ela arena > el(a) arena > el arena).

However, even supposing that, at a time when the feminine el still appeared before nouns beginning with an unstressed /a/, e.g., el abeja, el almeja, el arena, etc., i.e., in Late Medieval or Early Modern Spanish, some speakers may have reinterpreted the definite article of el azúcar as the feminine el after the noun azúcar underwent a change of gender from masculine to feminine, i.e., el (m.)azúcar moreno >azúcar moreno ~ azúcar morena > el (f.)azúcar morena (vis à visel arena dorada), we are still without an explanation for why this feminine el would have remained before this one feminine noun beginning with an unstressed /a/ in light of the fact that it receded and was ultimately replaced by la before all others, e.g., Old and Early ModSp. elabadesa, el abeja, el abertura, el (h)abilidad, el abispa, el aceituna, el aguja, el alacena, el albahaca, el alcaparra, el alcoba, el almendra, el alfombra, el almeja, el almohada, el altura, el amistad, el araña, el arena, etc. > ModSp. laabadesa, la abeja, la abertura, la habilidad, la abispa, la aceituna, la aguja, la alacena, la albahaca, la alcaparra, laalcoba, la almendra, la alfombra, la almeja, la almohada, la altura, la amistad, la araña, la arena, etc., but, elazúcar (morena).^[6] It also remains to be explained why masculine azúcar became feminine in some varieties of Spanish in the first place. In what follows, a look at the factors involved in this change will reveal why this noun, in the varieties of Spanish in which it has become feminine, continues to appear with the article el.

I would like to suggest that the change of azúcar from masculine to feminine for many speakers resulted, in part, from a morphological process known as contamination, a process through which one form will become more similar to a semantically related form. One can cite numerous examples from the history of Spanish. For example, the /r/ of Spanish estrella was likely acquired through the contamination of Latin STĒLLA by ASTRUM, as shown in (11a). Dworkin (1980) suggests that the /l/ of Sp. cola, which should have evolved to *coa from Latin CŌDA, was acquired through contamination by the semantically related culo, as shown in (11b). A similar case can be made for the /l/ of Sp. nalgas, which would have otherwise evolved to *nagas from Latin NĂTĬCAS, as shown in (11c). Latin NŬRUS ‘daughter-in-law’, would have evolved to *la nora, rather than la nuera, had this noun not received pressure (quite fittingly) from la suegra, as shown in (11d). Cravens (1982) attributes the high frequency of the feminine variant la mar in the speech of sailors and people whose livelihood is connected to the sea to contamination by the feminine nouns agua, marea, and ola, as depicted in (11e). Latin QUĪNQUE first evolved to *cinque, and would have remained as such had it not been for the –o of cuatro, which contaminated the following number through a process called “serial contamination”, as these words were said in a series, shown in (11f). Likewise, (DIES) LUNAE and (DIES) MĔRCŬRII would first have evolved to *lune and *miércole, i.e., without –s, and ultimately to **lun and **miércol, had it not been for the process of serial contamination and the final –s of martes, jueves, and viernes (< (DIES) MARTIS, JŎVIS, VĔNERIS), shown in (11g):

(11) Examples of Contamination from Latin to Spanish

(a) STĒLLA X ASTRUM > estrella

(b) CŌDA > *coa X culo > cola (Dworkin 1980)

(c) NĂTĬCAS > nadegas (Port.) > *nadgas > *nagas X culo > nalgas

(d) SŎCRUS > *SŎCRA > la suegra

↓

NŬRUS > *NŬRA > *la nora > la nuera

(e) MĂRE > el mar X agua, marea, ola > la mar (Cravens 1982)

(f) QUĪNQUE > *cinque

But: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, *cinque > uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco...

(g) (DIES) LUNAE, MĔRCŬRII > *lune, *miércole (> **lun, **miércol)

(DIES) MARTIS, JŎVIS, VĔNERIS > martes, jueves, viernes

But: *lune, martes, *miércole, jueves, viernes >

lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes

In light of the foregoing examples of contamination in the history of Spanish, I would like to suggest that the shift of azúcar from masculine to feminine began with the process of contamination by semantically related feminine nouns such as la caña, and those of the semantic category of las especias and other cooking ingredients of feminine gender, such as, for example, la sal, la pimienta, la canela, la harina, la manteca, and la miel, especially when these words were uttered in a series. In a search of CORDE to 1600, one finds the word azúcar appearing together with the feminine nouns of this semantic category to the varying degrees shown in (12):

(12) Feminine Nouns Appearing with azúcar in CORDE from 1100–1600

Number of Occurrences

la miel 208

la canela 76

la(s) caña(s) 39

las almendras 21

la sal 20

la(s) especia(s) 15

la leche 15

la manteca 13

las pasas 11

la harina 5

la pimienta 3

The word azúcar appears with these words either in a series, or in a conjoined structure, as shown in the selected examples of (13):

(13) Feminine Nouns Appearing with azúcar in a Series or in Conjoined Structures

cuanto cabe enel açucare en la miel (1250)

que se gaste templadamente elaçucar, espeçias, miel, manteca... (1500)

e, sinon quisieres poner ayaçucar, pon aymiel (1500)

freguen conaçucar& conmiel& con farina (1500)

tomalo conaçucaromielo con un poco de sal (1500)

pollo en agua cocho con poca saly conaçucary con mjel (1500)

beva agua de miel & agua deaçucar (1500)

tome delamjel& delaçucar (1500)

Y henchir el agua deaçúcar y canela y manteca de vacas... (1525)

Y dacaespecia, azúcar, traecanela, miel, manteca... (1528)

y después en el plato échenlemiel y azúcar y canela (1529)

en aquel librolas especias, la sal y el azúcar (1550)

se templen conaçucar, sal, leche de almendras, canela, pimienta... (1598)

Given that the most frequent of these nouns to appear with azúcar is la miel, as seen above in (12), it comes as no surprise to find that most of the earliest examples of azúcar as a feminine noun appear with la miel, either in a series or in conjoined structures, as seen in the examples in (14):

(14) Feminine azúcar Appearing with miel in a Series or in Conjoined Structures

& dulçe demjel & conplida demucha açucar (1344)

para faseraçucar rrosada, emiel rrosada (1477–1491)

una onza demiel oazúcar bermeja (1506)

ellos porende se deuen comer conmucha açucar o conmucha miel (1518)

ha encarecido las especias, la manteca,la miel y la açúcar (1553)

y leche como de almendras,miel y azúcar muy sabrosa. (1585–1586)

vale muy baratala miel de Cañas,la azúcar y cuanto della se hace (1653)^[7]

Of course, once the contamination of azúcar by la miel had begun to occur, azúcar would begin to appear alone as a feminine noun, as seen in the examples in (15):

(15) Feminine azúcar Appearing Alone

para haseraçucar rrosada (1477–1491)

para faseraçucar rrosada (1477–1491)

por que dela açúcar tabarzet verdad es que le aya? (1515)

y échalesazúcar fina. (1529)

Otros dizen: ni deaçúcar buena. (1549)

y más dulce quel’azúcar (1550)

donde agora se hacela mejor azúcar de aquella isla. (1552)

buenas medicinas amargas embueltas enla sabrosa açúcar. (1555)

e llevabamucha azúcar e perlas e otras cosas (1535–1557)

Aun deazúcar amarga. (1574)

donde se producemucha azúcar. (1583)

Cuandoel azúcar dulce biensazonada ycompuesta... (1598)

Dela açúcar no se ha de quitar nada (1607)

Y se añadirála açúcar para ser buena. (1607)

conla açucar peregrina del Cuzco (1632)

las tareas dela azúcar (1684)

por quela azucar, el dulce que empalaga (1710)

que sila azucar no es muylimpia, blanca y bienpurgada... (1710)

yá la azucar otra media. (1800)

Once contamination by semantically related nouns had initiated the shift of azúcar from masculine to feminine, another factor that likely propagated the change in gender of this noun was the morphological reanalysis of the phonetic realization of syntactic structures such as del azúcar and al azúcar. These syntactic structures would have been realized phonetically as shown in (16), as they are in Modern Spanish:

(16) del azúcar → [de-la-sú-kar]

al azúcar → [a-la-sú-kar]

The contracted articles of such phonetic realizations could have easily been reanalyzed morphologically as de la and a la, leading to new structures such as those shown in (17):

(17) del azúcar → [delasúkar] al azúcar [alasúkar]

↓ ↓

delaala

↓ ↓

dela azúcar ala azúcar

Two of the three earliest examples of azúcar with the feminine definite article la in fact appear with de (the other in a series with miel), as shown in (18):

(18) Earliest Attestations of azúcar with Feminine Article la según in CORDE

por quede la açúcar tabarzet verdad es que le aya? (1515)

De la açúcar no se ha de quitar nada (1607)

(ha encarecido las especias, la manteca,la miel y la açúcar (1553))

However, the feminine article la never fully took hold in this syntactic context precisely because the articles in this ambiguous phonetic realization could be reanalyzed back to del and al, as shown in (19):

(19) de la azúcar → [delasúkar] a la azúcar [alasúkar]

↓ ↓

delal

↓ ↓

delazúcaralazúcar

This ambiguous phonetic realization not only occurred in the syntactic context of the prepositions de and a plus the definite articles, but also occurred and continues to do so in any syntactic context in which unstressed /e/ precedes the definite articles since, in Spanish, two contiguous like vowels, when unstressed, will contract to one. So, if the masculine article is used, its /e/ will merge with the preceding one, and if the feminine article is used, its /a/ will merge with the following /a/ of azúcar, thus resulting in the same phonetic realization, regardless of which article is used, as shown in (20):

(20) ¡Pásame elazúcar!

→ [pásamelasúkar]

¡Pásamela azúcar!

¿Compraste elazúcar?

→ [komprástelasúkar]

¿Comprastela azúcar?

Más dulce que elazúcar

→ [mazδúlsekelasúkar]

Más dulce quela azúcar

I believe that this ambiguous phonetic realization is in fact the reason for the appearance of the article el before feminine azúcar to date, as this string of sounds can be interpreted morphologically as either el or la. Thus, the masculine article can be reanalyzed as the feminine article, as shown in (21a), and the feminine article can be reanalyzed as the masculine article, as shown in (21b), a process which has in effect created a new feminine el, which occurs only before this one feminine noun:

(21) a. ¡Pásame elazúcar! → [pásamelasúkar]

↓

¡Pásamelaazúcar!

b. ¡Pásamela azúcar morena! → [pásamelasúkarmoréna]

↓

¡Pásameelazúcar morena!

↓

New feminine el

So now, regardless of which article a speaker uses, either article can either be reanalyzed as the other, or remain unchanged, as shown in (22):

(22) ¡Pásame elazúcar (morena)!

→ [pásamelasúkar(moréna)]

¡Pásame la azúcar (morena)! ÷ ø

¡Pásameelazúcar (morena)! ~ ¡Pásamelaazúcar (morena)¡

It should not be surprising that the phonetically ambiguous realization described here has not given rise to the “new feminine el” before other feminine nouns beginning with an unstressed /a/, as almost all, unlike azúcar, are clearly marked with the grammatical morpheme of feminine gender -a, which ensures the maintainance of the article la, as shown in (23):

(23) ¿Mataste la araña? → [matástelaráña]

↓

¿Matastela araña?

Never: [matástelaráña]

↓

*¿Matasteel araña?

The only other noun beginning with an unstressed /a/ exhibiting a similar structure to that of azúcar is almíbar, which is masculine. Lacking a grammatical morpheme of gender, in this case -o, one might expect the phonetically ambiguous realization to produce, at least occasionally, the article la, as depicted in (24):

(24) ¿Sacaste los cascos de guayaba del almíbar? →

[sakásteloskáskosδeγwayáβaδelalmíβar]

↓

¿Sacaste los cascos de guayaba delaalmíbar?

However, a search of CORDE and CREA produces only 3 examples of la almíbar in 3 documents vs. 305 examples of el almíbar in 71 documents.^[8] This low number of examples of la almíbar and the firm maintainance of this noun’s masculine gender is likely due to the relatively low frequency of occurrence of the noun itself –CREA shows only 398 occurrences of almíbar in 119 documents compared to 7,711 occurrences of azúcar in 1,413 documents– and in turn the low frequency of occurrence of the phonetically ambiguous realization which could produce la almíbar, as well as to its association with the semantically related masculine noun, el jarabe.^[9]

While I believe that the foregoing diachronic and synchronic analyses explain the enigmatic morphology of Spanish el azúcar morena, some questions do remain. For example, if the ambiguous phonetic context described above can be interpreted as either el azúcar or la azúcar, why do we find so many more occurrences of feminine azúcar with el than with la? In the present study, for example, in CREA (1975–2004), one finds only 15 occurrences of la azúcar as seen above in (1), compared to 112 occurrences of el azúcar + a feminine adjective as seen above in (2), not to mention the unknown number of attestations of el azúcar without an adjective that may actually be feminine, i.e., that would be pronominalized with la. Has education played a role in limiting the occurrences of la azúcar? Could it be that la azúcar is therefore avoided in the written language, but that it actually occurs more frequently in the spoken, or in less formal registers of written language? Is la azúcar found more frequently in some regions and social registers than in others? Does la azúcar occur in some syntactic contexts more than in others? Perhaps some carefully planned and carefully conducted field research could provide us with some answers to these remaining questions.^[10]