(84226643) chapter 3 gender (1)
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Chapter 3
The category of gender
1. Preliminary remarks
The grammatical category of gender can be defined at the most basic
level as a system of noun classification reflected in the behaviour of
associated words (Hockett, quoted in Corbett 11!1"# $ language has
the category of gender if grammatical forms with variable gender (e#g#,
ad%ectives, &ronouns, numerals" regularly ado&t forms to agree with
grammatical forms of invariable gender, usually nouns ('odor 1!)"#
The core of the gender system in any language is the gender assignment
system, a set of rules according to which nouns are allotted to various
genders#
$ language may have two or more such classes or genders#
*asically, there seem to be two ma%or, sometimes com&eting systems for
assigning gender in languages throughout the world# +n the one hand,
there are SEMANTIC SSTEMS, where semantic factors are sufficient ontheir own to account for assignment (Corbett 11!"# -arious features,
such as . / animate 0, . / human0, . / male 0, are used as the basis for
gender assignment in such systems# ystems where masculine gender is
attributed to male referents and feminine gender to females are often
referred to as natural gender systems (Corbett 11! "# Thus in natural
gender systems the biological se2 of the referent matches grammar#
Criteria for semantic gender assignment system are wides&read3 the
general division is one between human and non-human, and humans are
divided male and female in turn# However, the dividing line can also be
animate inanimate# 4n this res&ect, 5nglish is a case in &oint, as
animals (&articularly domestic animals" are usually masculine or
feminine according to se2 (Corbett 11!1161)"#
+n the other hand, there are !"#MA$ SSTEMS, where formal
criteria are instrumental in assigning nouns to various gender classes#
4nformation about the form may in turn be of two ty&es! %ord&
str'ct're, com&rising derivation and inflection, i#e# mor&hological and
so'nd&str'ct're, i#e# &honological (cf# Corbett 11!78ff"#
))
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4n &articular this distinction betweensemantic andformal gender
assignment systems &oints to the traditional distinction between those
languages where gender is grammatical and those where gender is
9nat'ral(. The distinction can be summed u& as follows! grammaticalgender is formal whereas nat'ral gender is semantic# $ccording to
:es&ersen (177", the following divisions of gender can be identified in
4ndo65uro&ean languages!
Nat're(se2"
)rammar(gender"
male beingsfemale beings
se2less things
masculinewords
feminine
However, the distinction between nat'ral
semantic" and grammatical gender (i#e#formal" is beset with &roblems#;ost of the world
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*. Proposed models for the Modern English gender system
The ;odern 5nglish gender system is clearly based on semantic
criteria, unlike its 4ndo65uro&ean ancestors# Ahen gender distinctions
occur in 5nglish there is a close connection between the biological
category of sex and thegrammatical category of gender to the e2tent to
which natural se2 distinctions determine 5nglish gender distinctions# 4n
5nglish, gender is marked on the noun# However, modifiers B such as
ad%ectives, articles and demonstratives B are not marked for gender#
;oreover, s&ecial suffi2es are not generally used to mark gender
distinctions in 5nglish#
4n ;odern 5nglish, gender distinctions are based on twodifferent, and sometimes conflicting, semantic criteria! h'man + non&
h'man, further divided into male- female and animate + inanimate#
These criteria manifest themselves in the use of two sets of &ronouns#
Thefirst set is concerned with the personal and possessi,e prono'ns
he/him/his, she/her, it, the use of which is almost e2clusively motivated
by the semantic &arameters . / human0 and . / male0 (if we disregard the
use ofshe/her for shi&s and other vehicles, and, in some conte2ts, for
names of countries"# Thus &ersonal &ronouns in 5nglish agree with their
antecedent noun in gender (and also in number if we take into
consideration the use of they/them/their" and reflect a tri&le6gender
system!
-1
The linguist femaleD shot the albatross# @ater, she regretted shooting it#
The linguist maleD shot the albatross# 5nvironmentalists criticised him#
The albatross was shot by the linguist# It was later discovered by the
sailors#
The linguist shot the albatrosses# @ater, he regretted shooting them.The linguists shot the albatross# 'or this, they were criticised by
environmentalists#
The other set of &ronominal substitutes determining gender concerns the
use of relati,e prono'ns who/which and reflects a two6fold distinction
between the animate and the inanimate#
The question that arises is How many genders are there in
English? Ahile many s&eakers and scholars have remarked on the
system
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com&le2ity# $s 5rades (1=!)" &oints out, the gender of 5nglish
nouns, far from being sim&le and clear, is com&licated and obscure, and
the &rinci&les underlying it are baffling and elusive, no less, and &erha&s
even more so, than in other languages#$lthough most nouns in ;odern 5nglish follow the semantic
formulation of the system in which &ronominal gender corres&onds to
distinctions based on biological se2, nevertheless many nouns are
e2ce&tions to the rule# The key to understanding the natural gender
system in ;odern 5nglish lies in these e2ce&tions! the inanimate nouns
that take the gendered &ronouns he/she and the human and other animate
nouns that can be substituted for by it (CurFan )??7!)?"# These
e2ce&tions do not &rove the traditional rule of natural gender, but rather
they &rove the rule wrong#>escribing the 5nglish gender system is beset with difficulties#
'irst, as CurFan ()??7!)?" &oints out, the traditional idea that gender is a
fi2ed &ro&erty of the word must be abandoned, along with the idea that,
in general, all gender systems must o&erate in similar ways# econd, in
describing the 5nglish gender system one must rely on features that are
not immediately obvious to either s&eakers or linguists because there are
few formal clues# 4n 5nglish, gender is a covert category1 generally
marked when singular third6&erson &ronouns and the relative &ronouns
who/what/which are used to substitute for 5nglish nouns (CurFan
)??7!)?"# >es&ite this limited occurrence in the surface structure of
5nglish synta2, gender is a grammatical category that requires a
systematic analysis with regard to the !atterns of ana!horic !ronoun use
because these &atterns will &rovide us with clues about the structure ofthe categories within the system#
The e2ce&tional nouns, those that can flout the biological sex-
linguistic gender correlation, have traditionally been divided into two
basic grou&s! con,entionali/ed references and emoti,e -or affecti,e
references# The conventional gender assignment of certain inanimate
nouns seems to hold irres&ective of the attitude of the s&eaker and theyare fairly consistent within s&eech communities (e#g#shi! asshe"# Gro&er
names could be included in this category to the e2tent to which their
genders are conventional and they are learnt3 moreover, they a&&ly even
when used to refer to an inanimate entity (Ahorf 1=!?61"# 4t can be
argued, following Ahorf (1=", that 5nglish gender re&resents a
1 Ahorf (1=" draws the im&ortant distinction between o,ert and co,ertgrammatical categories# $n o,ert category is one having a formal markthat is &resent in every sentence containing a member of the category(e#g# 5nglish regular &lural"# *y contrast, a co,ert category includes
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grammatical category because the distinctions it gives rise to are not
always natural, but they must instead be learnt#
The choice of &ronoun de&ends greatly on the!sychological and
sociological attitude of the s&eaker towards the referent, as well asattributes of the referent# ;uch of the twentieth6century scholarshi& on
;odern 5nglish gender recogniFes the de&endence of 5nglish gender on
s&eaker attitudes (e#g# vartengren 1)8, 5rades 1=, :oly 18, ;orris
17", but the research comes to dramatically different conclusions
about the im&lications of this de&endence, ranging from the assertion that
5nglish has no system of gender to the formulation of multi&le formal
gender classes#
5nglish has three forms of the singular &ersonal &ronoun (he,she
and it" and two forms of the relative &ronoun (who and which", whichdistinguish between masc'line, feminine, ne'ter, and personal and
non&personal nouns, res&ectively# The &atterns of &ronoun co6reference
for singular nouns give three consistent agreement patterns in 5nglish
(in the &lural only the distinction between!ersonal and non-!ersonal is
&reserved, i#e# they/who vs# they/which" (Corbett 11!1?"! who/he 6
masc'line, who/she 6 feminine, and which/it 6 ne'ter#
Thus, str'ct'ralist approaches to ;odern 5nglish gender
&ro&osed various classification systems with categories based on the
&ersonal and relative &ronouns that can substituted for a given noun#
trang (18?!" &ro&oses seven gender classes while Gayne ()??=!8176
81E" outlines four! who/he 6 personal masc'line, who/she 6 personalfeminine, which/it B non&personal ne'ter, and which/she B non&personal feminine (for the so called 9boat nouns
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of gender in 5nglish concerns listing nouns that evince semantic gender
and grou&ing them in ten gender classes set u& on the basis of the
combinations of gender6sensitive &ronouns that substitute for singular
nouns# The descri&tion draws mainly on uirk et al (1"# Thisclassification of 5nglish nouns in ten gender classes results from an
attem&t to differentiate between all &ossible ty&es of nouns which have
different agreement &ossibilities based on &ronoun co6reference#
-10-* Personal masc'line0feminine no'ns (who he/she"
Gersonal masculine and &ersonal feminine nouns are of two ty&es# Thefirst ty&e includes nouns which are morphologically 'nmarked for
gender# Aith nouns in the second ty&e, on the other hand, the two gender
forms have a deri,ational relationship (i#e# one form is derived from the
other by means of suffi2ation"#
"ersonal masculine nouns that are morphologically 'nmarked
for gender include!
bachelor king
brother man
father monkIfriar
gentleman uncle
The corres&onding!ersonal feminine nouns that are morphologically'nmarked for gender include!
s&inster queen
sister woman
mother nun
lady aunt
4n addition to the masculine and feminine denotation, with some nouns
there is a s&ecial dual gender denotation!
Masc'line !eminine '
father
husband
brother
moth
er
wife
&are
nt
s&ou
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king queen sovereignImonar son daughter child
boy girl child
man woman &ersonIhumanlad lass youth
4n other cases such a denotation is lacking!
Masc'line !eminine
uncle aunt
ne&hew niece
lord ladyactor actress
monkIfriar nun
wiFard witch
4n others yet again, as we shall see below (gender class 3", only a dual
gender denotation is found! cousinIteacherIwriter, etc#
52am&les of !ersonal masculine/feminine nouns that are
morphologically marked for gender by means of a gender6s&ecific
derivational ending include!
Masc'line !eminine
bridegroom bride dukeduchess em&erorem&ress godgoddess heroheroine hosthostess steward
stewardess waiterwaitress widowerwidow
$s the e2am&les above show, usually the feminine is derived from the
masculine# The reverse is also &ossible, but rare! widow6widower2bride6
bridegroom#
4t should be &ointed out that while ess is unambiguously a
feminine marker, -or/-er is not always a masculine6only marker,
es&ecially when there is no corres&ondingess form in common use (e#g#
doctor, teacher, etc"# However, many nouns ending inor/-er are
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early teenage years and it is not very commonly used for individuals
aged over )?# *irl, on the other hand, can be used to refer to women
who are no longer in their teens# 4t is quite common to hear of a grou& of
&eo&le that consists of, say, three men and four girls# $ *ritishnews&a&er carried the headline *irl Tal# to describe a meeting between
;argaret Thatcher and 4ndira Kandhi when the two were Grime
;inisters in their res&ective countries# *irl can also be used to refer to 9a
female servant3 a female em&loyee< or to one
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-7
*y the gate the Gatriarch
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referent is unknown or irrelevant, or reference is made to both se2es#
Traditionally, &rescri&tive 5nglish grammars im&osed the use of
masculine &ronouns, a tendency characteristic of formal 5nglish# This
formal equivalent, though increasingly ignored, is illustrated below!
-1;
5ach novelist aims to make a single novel of the material he has been
given#
-11
Everyone thinks he knows the answer#
5ven though such masculine &ronouns may be intended to have dual
reference, em&irical research has shown that s&eakers often &erceive
their referent to be male# 'or instance undergraduate students at Harvard
Lniversity were asked to draw &ictures to go with sentences such as!
-1*
$n unha&&y &erson could still have a smile on his face#
$n unha&&y &erson could still have a smile on their face#
$n unha&&y &erson could still have a smile on his or her face#
The findings showed that there were more male images than female ones(cf# Mhosroshashi '# 1"# imilarly, ;acMay and 'ulkerson (18"showed that the use of generic he frequently leads to a male6referentinter&retation of antecedents such as student, dancer or musician'Consequently, such use of masculine &ronouns has come in for a greatdeal of criticism and various strategies have been &ro&osed to avoid
gender6s&ecific &ronouns# Two ma%or grammatical devices can be used asalternatives to masculine forms with dual or generic reference!
A.
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-13
5verystudent has to hand in his or her&a&er by the end of the week#
-14
Thus the user acts on his0her res&onsibility when e2ecuting his0her
functions within his0her task domain#
-15
nyone with 5nglish as his or her native language does not need other
languages#
=.
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-1:
Jow they e2&ect res&onsible customers to &ay for their folly#
$ similar strategy can be em&loyed for indefinite &ronouns as well!
-*;
ll of them think they have the answer#
The use of coordinated masculine and feminine forms is
&articularly &referred in academic discourse (*iber et al# 1!718"# This
&reference is in line with the features of academic style which favourse2actness# *y contrast any use of &lural &ronouns to substitute for
singular nouns violates &rescri&tive rules of grammar# Consequently this
o&tion is unlikely to be ado&ted in academic writing, a register very
much concerned with correctness# Coordination, on the other hand,
involves a length which might make it dis&referred in %ournalistic style
and a degree of clumsiness which might make it less &referred in other
registers, such as conversational or literary discourse#
-4 Common gender (who he/she& which it"
Common gender nouns are intermediate between !ersonal and non-!ersonal# Common gender a&&lies to nouns such as baby, infant, child,which though referring to male or female human beings, make gender soirrelevant that they can be re&laced by the neuter &ronoun it1s2#
-*1
The baby lost his &arents when it was three weeks old#
This wide selection of &ronouns (who he/she& which it"
should not be understood to mean that all these &ronominal substitutes
are in free variation, i#e# all are &ossible in all conte2ts# Gersonal
reference (he/she B who" e2&resses greater familiarity or involvement#
Ahereas non6&ersonal reference (it B which" is more detached# Thus a
mother is not likely to refer to her baby as it# However the non6&ersonal
&ronominal substitute it would be quite &ossible for someone who is
1=
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emotionally unrelated to the child or is ignorant of or indifferent to its
se2#
-5 Collecti,e no'ns (which it3 who they"
Lnlike other nouns, these take as &ronoun substitutes either singular (it"
or &lural (they" without change of number in the noun# Consequently the
verb may be in the &lural after a singular noun!
-**
The committee %as discussing the &ro&osal# It decided to re%ect the
&ro&osal by a vote of five to two#
-*3
The committee %ere discussing the &ro&osal# They decided to re%ect the
&ro&osal by a vote of five to two#
The singular and &lural choices are by no means in free variation#This distinction made within collective nouns a&&ears to be related ton'mer rather than gender# ingular forms reflect a tendency towardsgrammatical agreement rather notional concord# However, it alsoinvolves gender, since the difference in substitution reflects a differencein attitude! focus on the collectivity of the grou& (singular" or on theindividuals within the grou& (&lural"#
4n &resent6day $merican and *ritish 5nglish there seems to be a
tendency towards a more fre>'ent 'se of sing'lar forms# ;arckwardt
(1" claims that $merican 5nglish has retained the older &ractice of
using &lural concord and that in the 1?s there were no indications ofchange# 5vidence from the second half of the twentieth century,
however, shows that $merican 5nglish is currently leading world
5nglish in a change towards a more frequent use of singular concord#
Kreenbaum and uirk (1?! )1=" identified the same &attern when they
argued that in $merican 5nglish grammatically singular collective
nouns are generally treated as singular, es&ecially when they refer to
governments and s&orts teams#
$lthough *ritish 5nglish does favour singular forms, it has not
been influenced by $merican 5nglish# The develo&ment within *ritish
5nglish must have taken &lace inde&endently, because singular forms
18
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were increasingly used in *ritish 5nglish in the 17?s, a time when
influence from $merican 5nglish through mass media and increased
global mobility was less wides&read than it is today (*auer 1E! =16
=="# >ata from the eighteenth and nineteenth century suggest that thesingular has always been a latent o&tion in both *ritish and $merican
5nglish (Hundt forthcoming"# ;oreover, in both *ritish 5nglish and
$merican 5nglish a mi2ture of the two agreement &atterns mentioned
above is also &ossible! &lural &ronouns can be used to refer to
mor&hologically singular collective nouns even when the verb is
singular, becoming thus an alternative to it, as the following e2am&le in
-*4 shows!
-*4
The committee has not yet decided how they should react to their
&ro&osal#
-60-7 Masc'line and feminine higher animals
These gender classes contain nouns denoting the range of animals andbirds in which human society takes a s&ecial interest, to the e2tent towhich these animals are involved in familiar e2&erience either in theconte2t of farming or as domestic &ets# ;any of these nouns occur inmale and female &airs often with he N she as the reference &ronouns(alongside it" though usually with which as the relative &ronoun#
Masc'line !eminine
boar sow
buck doebull doe
cock hen
dog bitch
gander goose
lion lioness
stallion mare
stag hindIdoe
tiger tigress
ram ewe
fo2 vi2en
1
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>es&ite such &airs as dog N bitch, either one of the two or an item
outside the &airing is used with dual gender reference# Aith several of
these nouns an item outside the &airing is used to dual reference!
Masc'line
ram
!eminine
ewe
'al
shee&boar sow &igIswi
stallion mare horse
stag hindIdoe deer
cock hen fowl
Aith some nouns the masculine form is used with dual reference!
Masc'line !eminine 'al
fo2 vi2en f lion lioness li
ruff ree r
Aith others thefeminine is used to designate either se2!
Masc'line !eminine '
ganderdrake
goose
goose
Ahile still other nouns make use of com&ound nouns with &ro&er names
to indicate se2 differences!
Masc'line !eminine '
tom6cat
%ack6ass
tabby6
cat
c
a
-9 ?igher organisms (it/she which"
The class of higher organisms includes nouns denoting shi&s, countries
and other entities towards which the s&eaker e2&resses an affectionate
1
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attitude# Thus the &ronominal substitutes for these nouns areshe (to
signal s&eaker
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-: $o%er animals (it which"
These nouns (e#g# ant, frog, herring, horsefly, roach, sna#e, etc" take as&ronoun substitutes it and which# till the masculine feminine
distinction may also be made e2&licit by formal gender markers if it is
felt to be relevant!
Masc'line !eminine
male frog female frog
he6goat she6goat dog6
otter itch6otter cock6&heasant hen6&heasant male6
was& female was& cock6
&igeon hen6&igeon he6
bear she6bear
'ck6hareI@ack6hare doe6hare
'ck6rabbit doe6rabbit
Kender can also be marked le2ically, i#e# by different le2ical items!
Masc'line !eminine
drone bee6queen
-1; Inanimate no'ns -itB which"
$&art from the nine animate gender classes mentioned so far, there are
also the inanimate no'ns that make u& the tenth gender class# 4nanimatenouns take as &ronoun substitutes it and which# "ersonification in
creative use of language may lead to giving the nouns of classes : and 1;
the features ./human0, ./animate0, accounting thus for the use of the
&ronominal substitutes he,she and who#
$ more u&dated a&&roach to gender in 5nglish that su&&lements
rather than substitutes uirk et al# (18), 1" isongman(s *rammar
of +!o#en and 4ritten English (*iber et al# 1", incor&orating, for the
first time, as the title suggests data form s&oken language# The main
gender classes according to *iber et al# (1" are!
)1
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personal0h'man!
masc'line
feminined'al
e#g# Tom, a boy, the man
e#g# +ue, a girl, thewoman e#g# a teacher,
h
es
non&personal0ne'ter! e#g# a house, a bird it(*iber et al# 1!711"
*iber and his colleagues, however, warn against the &roblematic
nature of gender in &resent day 5nglish &ointing out that gender is not a
sim&le reflection of reality3 rather it is to some e2tent a matter of
convention and s&eakers< choice and s&ecial strategies may be used to
avoid gender6s&ecific reference at all (*iber et al# 1!71)"# +f ma%orrelevance for this cha&ter is the section about !ersonal vs' non-!ersonal
reference# The authors argue that &ersonal reference connotes greater
familiarity or involvement, whereas non6&ersonal reference signals
detachment on the &art of the s&eaker# 4tems falling into the category that
offers a three6way choice (&ersonal he, she3 non6&ersonal it" are nouns
denoting young children (infant, baby, child" and animals (&articularly
nouns denoting animals that can be &ets3 cf' ibid! 71"# $n e2ce&tional
status is attributed to nouns denoting countries and shi&s, which offer a
two6way choice (&ersonal she, non6&ersonal it"# However, they fail to
account for this e2ce&tional case#
3. Modern English gender re,isited
@eisi and ;air (1!1E?" argue that gender in 5nglish has lost much of
its weight &rimarily because it was a &urely grammatical category
without being grounded in reality# 4n their account of 5nglish gender
e2ce&tional feminine and masculine nouns include names of countries
and machines men have a close emotional relationshi& with (e#g#
motorbi#e"3 these nouns are referred to as ado!ted natural
1!sychological2 gender5' $dditionally, the class of allegorical gender
includes abstract nouns whose gender, according to the authors, is
largely based on the gender associated with noun in the original classical
language# Thus, love can be masculine ( @at# amor",!eace feminine (
@at#!ax"#
) This category is traditionally known as metaphorical gender (cf'Mortmann
))
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1!7"#
)7
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;ore recently, *rinton ()???!1?f" follows the mainstream view
that modern 5nglish has natural gender as o&&osed to its earlier
grammatical gender# he states that 5nglish gender is generally a covert
category in nouns, while the related category of animacybased on theo&&ositions animate vs' inanimate is e2&ressed in &ersonal, interrogative
and relative &ronouns (what vs# who& which vs# who"# 4nterestingly, her
account &ostulates an animacy6based classification! humans and higher
animals, on the one hand, lower animal and inanimates, on the other#
$nimals thus a&&ear on both sides of the scale# The cut6off &oint can
vary on all levels of lectal variation (dia6 , socio6, idiolect", de&ending on
the s&eech event, conte2t, s&eaker attitude, addressee, etc#
The most recent significant contribution to gender in modern
5nglish is Huddleston and Gullum
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4t is the third factor that is remarkable and merits s&ecial attention, as this
is what every native s&eaker would say in an im&ressionistic account and
what has been the focus of socio6&ragmatic a&&roaches to gender for
some decades (;athiot and Ooberts 18, ;orris 11", but what has notbeen taken u& in &rescri&tive grammars so farE# Aith regard to use of it
for human antecedents, the authors combine a traditional
common&lace (it can be used to refer to babies" with an a&&roach based
on s!ea#er(s attitudes! used in such a manner, it tends to signal
resentment and anti&athy on the &art of the s&eaker# $nother s&ecial case
they mention concerns the use of she with inanimate non6female
referents# $ccording to the authors, such usage is &ossible with two
classes of nouns! (i" nouns denoting countries, when considered as
&olitical, but not as geogra&hical entities, and (ii" nouns denoting shi&sand the like
hi&s re&resent the classical case of this e2tended use of she, but it
is found with other kinds of inanimates, such as cars# There is
considerable variation among s&eakers as to how widely they
make use of this kind of &ersonification# 4t is often found with non6
ana&horic uses ofshe!Here she is at last (referring to a shi& or bus,
&erha&s",8own she comes (withshe referring, say, to a tree that is
being felled"#
Huddleston and Gullum ()??)!EE"
The e2tent to which &ersonification is involved will be discussed in alater section# 'or the moment, it suffices to say that, in the absence of areferent, we can hardly be dealing with &ersonification, as the &ronoun isnot used ana&horically# Gersonification cannot be involved whenreference is made to an abstract idea or situation (as this is what most ofthe instances of she in their e2am&les seem to refer to"# Gayne andHuddleston do a&&ro2imate the actual situation by not trying to &rovide a
grid or table that lists gender classes, a modern a&&roach which makes itclear that almost )? years have &assed since the structuralist a&&roach ofuirk et al' (1"#
)
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3.1. The socio&pragmatic ,ie% ased on speaker attit'des
'aced with s&eaker6based variation in gender, some linguists havedismissed the conce&t of gender in 5nglish and argued that, although
alive in the language use, 5nglish gender cannot be regarded as a
system (5rades 1=, ;arkus 1"# Can we s&eak of gender in a
language where the same may at one moment be masculine, at another
feminine or neuter, and, let us mark it well, in the language of the same
s&eaker and sometimes in one and the same sentenceP (5rades 1=!"#
5rades concludes that 5nglish has no gender, unless the term is
reinter&reted beyond recognition# Ahat 5rades suggests is that the
system amounts to variation in &ronominal substitutes according to themood, tem&er, frame of mind, and &sychological attitude of the s&eaker!
The old schoolbook rule to the effect that a male being is a he, a female
being a she and a thing an it a&&lies when the s&eaker is emotionally
neutral to the sub%ect referred to3 as soon as his language becomes
affectively coloured, a living being may become an it, this or what and a
thing a he orshe (5rades 1=!1?"#
5rades (1=" rightly em&hasiFes s!ea#er attitudes and
variability inherent in the 5nglish gender system, but he too swee&ingly
abandons its systematic nature in favour of s&eaker whims#
Contem&orary sociolinguistic research has shown that s&eech &atterns
within communities are often systematic and e2&licable given
information about e2tra6linguistic factors# 4n other words, s&eaker6based
theories are not inherently irregular#
The recognition of its variability is a com&onent that is
instrumental in understanding ;odern 5nglish gender# However, it is
equally im&ortant not to overem&hasiFe un&redictability# $lthough
biological se2 is not absolutely &redictive, there are regular, identifiable
&atterns that are bothsemantic andsociolinguistic# $s -achek (18=" has
&ointed out, if all factors that co6o&erate in determining the &ronominalreference are duly considered and if their hierarchy is carefully
established, the a&&arent confusion becomes clarified and the knotty
relations disentangled# 4n other words, if the situation of the s&eaker
and his a&&roach to the e2tra6lingual reality he is handling are
satisfactorily stated, his &ronominal reference to this reality should be
&erfectly &redictable (-achek 18=!7"# There must be a system of
gender, he concludes, if it can be so systematically mani&ulated3 the
gender category may not be strictly grammatical but it is lexico-stylistic
(by which he seems to mean semantic and affective"#
)=
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$ttem&ts to &redict the semantic and e2tra6linguistic factors
determining 5nglish &ronoun reference, most of which &ostulate
emotional involvement on the &art of the s&eaker, have met with limited
success# -arious studies aiming to identify the factors determiningemotive gender reference have &ro&osed that masculine and feminine
references to inanimate ob%ects reflect s&eakers< negative andIor &ositive
attitudes towards the referent# Joting that e2ce&tional gendered
associations cluster around some ty&ical invariants and have social
values, -achek (18=" formulates a scale with a neutral, unmarked
reference between two &olar e2tremes for &ositive and negative feelings
towards the facts of any given reality# Aith regard to these marked uses
he states!
The reason why the feminine set was chosen to refer to the &ositive
kind of a&&roach (signalling the thing referred to as amiable,
intimately known, delicate, etc", while the masculine set serves to
denote the o&&osite, negative kind of a&&roach (signalling, in its
turn, the concerned thing as huge, strong, unwieldy or generally
un&leasant" is too obvious to need detailed s&ecification B it
reflects the common conce&tion of the feminine vs' masculine
features regarded as ty&ical of each of the two se2es# (-achek
18=! 7"
+ther linguists (Traugott 18)" concur with this model of the affecti,egender system arguing that the correlation between feminine and&ositive, on the one hand, and masculine and negative, on the other, istrans&arent# $s far as animate nouns are concerned, the consensus is thatthe masculine and feminine are both unmarked# &eakers can e2&resstheir negative feelings towards an animate referent by downgrading himor her to it#
The correlations between feminine and &ositive, masculine and
negative are, however, far from obvious# $&art from conveying thes&eaker
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account of the 5nglish gender system# He &ro&oses a model in which
animacy and humanity are the to& two &arameters for determining
gender, a reflection of fundamental distinctions in 4ndo65uro&ean, which
are revealed once the language did away with mor&hological gender(:oly 18!)E"# To account for gender6related fluctuations, :oly relies on
s&eaker attitudes and &erce&tions of the referent!
;y contention here is that ;odern 5nglish re&roduces very
consistently at least &art of the 4ndo65uro&ean &attern of
gender, viF# the basic o&&osition animate-!owerful vs# inanimate-
!owerless# 4n 5nglish, whenever the s&eaker feels that an ob%ect or
any inanimate notion &ossesses some kind of &ower, the neuter
ana&horic &ronoun it may be re&laced by one of the two animate&ronouns he or she &ertaining to the s&here of humanity which is
the &ro&er s&here of &ower (7bid#!)E"#
The o&&osite a&&lies as well, when a human being is de&rived of &owerandIor &ersonality the ana&horic animate &ronouns he and she arere&laced by the neuter &ronoun it# :oly further distinguishes two degreesof &ower! ma.or !ower (masculine" and minor !ower (feminine"# Thus,the choice of a gendered &ronoun for an inanimate is not based,according to :oly, on biological se2 distinctions but on !ower
distinctions# ;oreover, he argues that there is the tendency to use thelower &ower first for an inanimate (it is closer to its original no6&owerstatus" unless com&elled to do otherwise# This vacillation in genderassignment reflects s&eakers< emotional attitudes, ranging fromemotional involvement to contem&t#
4t is im&ossible to identify the factors instrumental in gender
assignment, although it is &ossible to recogniFe &atterns# +n the other
hand, &ostulating a dichotomy between natural (unmarked" gender and
affective gender in 5nglish would mean treating the fluctuations as
e2ce&tional and thus e2cluding them from the base or unmarked system#;ore &roductive would be to devise a system that incor&orates
9unmarked< and 9marked
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3.*. Special referent classes
4n the course of this cha&ter, it has been mentioned re&eatedly that nounswhich trigger gendered &ronouns deserve a s&ecial status# The two ma%or
categories to be discussed in what follows are instances of
&ersonification and references to animals# $dditionally, a s&ecific use of
feminine &ronouns merits a closer investigation# This s&ecific use will be
labelled non6referentialshe#
3.*.1 Personification of inanimate entities
Gersonification can be defined as the figure of s&eech which attributes
human qualities to non6humans and things (animals, &lants, elements of
nature, and abstract ideas"# The entry for &ersonification in The 0ew
3owler(s odern English 9sage (*urchfield and 'owler 1" links the
loss of grammatical gender with the rise of &ersonification, citing
e2am&les from the :E8!
Gersonification arises &artly as a natural or rhetorical &henomenon
and &artly as a result of the loss of grammatical gender at the end of
the $nglo6a2on &eriod# 4n +ld 5nglish a &ronoun used in &lace of
a masculine noun was invariably he, in &lace of a feminine noun
heo (Q she", and in &lace of a neuter noun hit (Q it"# Ahen the
system broke u& and the old grammatical cases disa&&eared, the
obvious result was the narrowing down of he to a male &erson or
animal, she to a female &erson or animal, and it to nearly all
remaining nouns# $t the &oint of loss of grammatical gender,
however, he began to be a&&lied 9illogically< to some things
&ersonified as masculine (mountains, rivers, oak6trees, etc#, as the:xford English 8ictionary has it", and she to some things
&ersonified as feminine (shi&s, boats, carriages, utensils, etc#"# 'or
e2am&le, the :xford English 8ictionary cites e2am&les of he used
of the world (1Ec#", the &hiloso&her
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bought that yacht last year; she rides the water beautifully& 1in
ustralia and 0
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-35
;au&assant stri&s life of the few &oor rags that still cover her#
(tefanescu 1!18"
4n fiction names of towns may be treated as feminine!
-36
4n the third &lace, it is obvious that no very close or instructive analogy
can be established between=ome in her relations with the &rovinces####
-37
"aris was herself again#
-39
:xford taught as much Kreek and @atin as she could#
(tefanescu 1!188"
James of celestial bodies can be masculine or feminine# ars and>u!iter are masculine while enus is feminine# +un is masculine and so istime andyear#oon is feminine like the names of theseasons# 4n manycases the gender of nouns used in literary discourse de&ends on thenouns< corres&onding gender in @atin (Mruisinga 171"#
4n a cor&us6based study on &ersonification, ;acMay and Monishi
(1?" investigated the use of what they call h'man prono'ns (i#e#
he,she and their dative6accusative and genitive forms him, her, his, hers,
res&ectively" to refer to non&h'man antecedents# The authors based
their analysis on a database of a&&ro2imately 7,??? &ronouns collectedfrom an anthology of children(s literat're# They distinguished three
large classes of antecedents! animals (including real, imaginary, and toy
animals", fantasy creatures (including imaginary beings such as fairies,
ghosts, giants, and trolls" and things (including abstractions such as
thought and time" (;acMay and Monishi 1?!11"# Though designed as
a study dealing with &ersonification it soon turned out that
&ersonification &layed only a minor role when deviations from the
&rescri&tive &atterns occurred#
Their findings are highly une2&ected in light of &rescri&tive
grammarians< eyes! of the a&&ro2imately E? &ronominal references to
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animals, more than ?R were masculine and feminine (with the
masculine outnumbering the feminine by 7 to 1" while the neuter
&ronoun it occurred in only 1R of the e2am&les# Je2t ;acMay and
Monishi classified the &ronouns according to whether or not theantecedent was &ersonified, assuming that &ersonification would &lay a
significant role in triggering non6neuter &ronouns# $lthough, in general,
this was found to be the case, the figures for the non6&ersonified
antecedents were sur&rising and une2&ectedly high, as the Tale 1
shows#
Aithin the class of nouns denoting animals, &ersonification could
account for the use of a human &ronoun in a&&ro2imately half of the
cases ()7E of E)"# 4n the non6&ersonified cases, as shown in Tale 1, a
human &ronoun was recorded in more than two thirds (=R" of thee2am&les# This figure clearly shows how rare it is actually used to refer
to animals# These figures for the animal class, however, stand in marked
contrast to the figures for the classes including nouns referring to fantasy
creatures and things which clearly follow the e2&ected norm# $ll
e2am&les of fantasy creatures being referred to as he orshe are instances
of &ersonification, and in only si2 cases did s&eakers use a human
&ronoun to refer to things#
Gronoun used
Total he she
Jature of
antecedent
J J R J R
$nimals )1 1? = = 71
'antasy
creatures
? ? ? ? ?
Things )= = )7 )? 88
Total )E= 1= =E 7=
Tale 1 The use of he andshe vs# it for non6&ersonified antecedents
(based on ;acMay and Monishi 1?!1)"
Cor&us6based studies of e,eryday 'se of spoken English, on the
other hand, show that &ersonification is generally restricted to the telling
of myths and legends (Aagner )??7"# *orderline cases between &ro&er
&ersonification and dialect use of 5nglish include references to the
&henomenon known also as ignis fatuus and %ack6o
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and around which many &o&ular su&erstitions cluster8# This
&hos&horescent light flitting at night over swam&y ground is sometimes
called %ack6o
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that they are the souls of unba&tiFed infants# cience now attributes these
ignes fatui to s&ontaneous combustion of gases emitted by rotting
organic matter#
7E
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&ersonification is obvious too general a label to cover what seem to be
quite com&le2 analogical or meta&horical hierarchies of salience
according to such value(s" as occu&ation, local environment and climate
and general relevance to human needs, as well as subtle forms of gendersymbolism#
3.*.*. Animal referents
$nother class of nouns that deserves s&ecial attention with regard to the
degree of &ersonification involved in gender assignment is that of nouns
referring to animals# $s we have already seen in the &revious section,according to most grammars of modern and early stages of 5nglish the
a&&ro&riate &ronoun that should be used when referring to an animal is it,
e2ce&t for cases where the se2 of the animal is known# $s we will see in
this section, actual language use, however, cannot be more remote from
this &rescri&tive statement# 5ven a cursory e2amination of s&eakersistricts
i2# Ooad, trail, distance
2# Jatural resources e2&loited by man
*. ActionsD astract ideas
a" $ctionsi# 52&ressions containing an im&erative
ii# +ther e2&ressions denoting actions
b" $bstract ideas
i# Gronoun referring to substantive mentioned
ii# Jo substantival &ro&word
3. Nat're and nat'ral o@ects not %orked 'pon y man
a" Jature
b" Celestial bodies
c" Keogra&hical a&&ellations
d" ;aterial nouns
e" easons, &eriods
f" 'ire, tem&erature, weather conditions, ice, snow
g" Human body and its &arts
)
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The feature that unifies these three categories is that the use of
she reflects emotional interest on the &art of the s&eaker, a bond of
living and working together# vartengren concludes that the emotionalcharacter is the distinguishing feature of the &henomenon# Consequently,
she 1her2 does not so much mark the gender of a more or less fanciful
&ersonification B though there are more than traces of such a thing B as
denote the ob%ect of an emotion (vartengren 1)8!1?"#
$t this &oint one issue deserves &articular attention# $s we have
already seen in the &revious section, some of vartengren
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mirrored by the feminine gender (vartengren 1)8!11?" and the use of
the &ersonal &ronoun she instead of it to refer to various classes of
inanimate entities, such as tools, instruments, machinery, etc#, can be
accounted for in terms of the familiarity and the feeling ofcom&anionshi& between the artisan and his tools (ibid#"# vartengren
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? The ma%or distinction between animate and inanimate is reflectedin the use of it vs# heIshe
? The factor res&onsible for a change in the gender assignment
&attern is &ragmatic rather than grammatical! an animal that isforegrounded as the to&ic of a conversation will very likely bereferred to as he orshe#
4n her data he rather than she is the most frequently used
ana&horic &ronoun to substitute for nouns denoting animals# ;oreover,
;orris relates the choice between he or she to the behaviour of the
animal in question# The data ;orris uses for her analysis shows that
feminine &ronouns referring to animals are rare in Canadian 5nglish#
!ig're 1 shows the hierarchical system for assigning gender to nounsdenoting animals according to ;orris (11!1)"!
clearly animate inanimate
he it
/ female 6 female (neutral"
she he
!ig're 1 Kender assignment for nouns denoting animals in ;orris(11"
5.*. =iologically inanimate denotata
;orris< data show that, unlike the use of ana&horic &ronouns referring to
animals, inanimate &ronominaliFation &redicts the use ofshe rather than
he# 4n her o&inion, s!ea#er familiarity is res&onsible for many of theinstances of the feminine &ronounshe used to refer to inanimate entities#
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-ery often, the feminine &ronoun occurs in im&erative sentences#
;orris argues that the use of it would convey the sentence the
illocutionary force of an order# The feminine &ronounshe, on the other
hand, has an inviting, attenuating effect (;orris 11! 1"# uch anattenuating effect can easily be assumed as an e2&lanatory factor for the
occurrences of non6referential feminine forms in general# $dditionally,
;orris contrasts the use of feminine and neuter&ronominal forms along
another dimension!
she &articular denotatum, &articular im&ressions of a given
denotatum
it conce&tInorm of that ty&e of denotatum
Ahat &lays an im&ortant role in choosing the &ronominal substitute is the
&rototy&icality of a given referent# Ahile a &rototy&ical denotatum will
generally be referred to as it, the s&eaker has the tendency to shift to a
feminine form as soon as attention is called to anything &eculiar or
noteworthy about the referent#
Lnlike the use of &ronominal substitutes for animate denotata
identified in ;orris< data, masculine &ronouns are basically non6e2istent
for inanimate referents# he &oints out that while masculine reference to
any ty!e of inanimate denotatum is extremely rare, no e2am&les at all
were found in which a native 5nglish s&eaker used he to re&resent an
intangible, difficult6to6identify ty&e of denotatum (;orris 11!1=E3
my em&hasis"#
*ased on the few e2am&les of masculine &ronouns referring toinanimate entities that she was able to collect1), ;orris establishes thefollowing contrasts between the uses ofshe and he!
she familiarity, well6known3 &redictable, foreseeable
he maintains features of the unknown3 less familiar,
un&redictable, more individualistic
$ccording to ;orris (11!18", the &rimary function of
&ronoun gender is to re&resent and e2&ress the manner in which a
s&eaker has formed his mental image of the denotatum# +verall,
&ronoun choice is thus largely based on disco'rse&pragmatic factors,
1) ;orris< database for this category is rather small in com&arison to othercategories# +f the a&&ro2imately 1,?? e2am&les which make u& heroverall database, only ? instances of masculine &ronominaliFation areused to refer to inanimate entities# These include 1 instances of&ersonification and about 7? e2am&les taken from other authors