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Abstract
This thesis addresses grammatical gender changes in the terms for professions, both from a historical perspective and from a modern perspective. The modern analysis is based on a survey which asks native speakers of Spanish in various locations in the United States to provide the female equivalents for male terms for the names of various professions. It then correlates their responses with the sex, age, and level of education of the respondants of Mexican origin. The results of this survey are also compared to the evolving prescriptive rules compiled by lexicographers over the last century. The survey results show that there are grammatical gender changes that have not yet been incorporated by lexicographers. However, a comparison of the contents of dictionaries over time shows the gender changes are being incorporated. Rule changes occur after actual usage changes in society and depend on the percentage of women working in different professions. INDEX WORDS Spanish language in the United States, grammatical gender, names of professions, speaker judgments, dictionaries LOS CAMBIOS EN EL GENERO DE LOS NOMBRES DE PROFESIONES EN EL ESPAOL DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS Escrita por BELEN FLOREZ EPPERSON B.A. Universidad Autnoma Latinoamericana, Colombia, 1986 Tesis presentada a la Universidad de Georgia como requisito de graduacin MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2005