Abstract: This paper aims at unfolding the patterns of gender assignment to English nominal loans in Bangla. By adopting the descriptive exploratory framework, the researchers have culled data from lexicographic and scholarly sources. The data then were qualitatively analyzed. Findings of the study are compatible with the theoretical postulations of Haugen (1969), Ibrahim (1973) and Corbett (1991). Bangla assigns gender to English loan nouns in two ways – by following its own rules and in some cases by complying with the rules of the donor language.  In case of the gender inflection of adapted or nativized loanwords, Bangla applies its own rules. The second approach is the inflection of adopted or unmodified borrowings as per the grammatical rules of the source language. Beyond the adopted – adapted binary, there are some special cases where the Banglophones apply language-specific techniques. As these techniques are beyond the ken of typological findings of the trio mentioned above, and no hard and fast rule is followed in these cases of unique feminization, we have collectively dubbed these as the ‘arbitrary approach’.  Structurally, after automatically assigning the borrowed item to the strongest gender i.e. masculine gender, Bangla inflects the loanwords by adding feminine suffixes (Daktar – Daktarni), by placing canonical feminine markers before or after the nouns (Mahila Commissioner, Lady biker, Magistrate-patni), in some special cases by zero morpheme (‘Home Minister’ meaning someone’s wife) and lexically (Husband – Wife).

 Keywords: Loanwords, loan nouns, natural gender, unmarked gender, inflection

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