The category of gender

Some grammaticians spent a lot of time proving that this category does not exist. Others define the subcategorization of gender as purely lexical.

The English noun has no markers that help to identify this grammatical category. However very often we have to express sexual distinction.

1. When we have different words: woman – man

2. When there are no pairs of words:

- to add a pronoun: a she – doctor / a he – doctor

- man / woman: washer-man – washer-woman (compound words)

- animals: pronouns or even proper names: a she – goat – a he – goat; Tom-cat – Pussy-cat

- ess – actor – actress; steward – stewardess

Sometimes some objects are usually referred to as “she”: ships, cars, and towns.

Besides there’s a tendency: something which carries a stronger force and feeling = “he” (sun, love, wind) and something that carries softer forces / feelings is usually referred to as “she” (moon, sweet).

When man is a suffix it is not considered (male = female). Chairman, postman = she’s a postman, but sometimes: sportsman = sportswoman.

The category of gender is expressed in English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the third person. The category is strictly oppositional. It is formed by two oppositions related to each other on a hierarchical basis. One opposition functions in the whole set of nouns, dividing them into person (human) nouns and non-person (non-human) nouns. The other opposition functions in the subset of person nouns dividing them into masculine nouns and feminine nouns. So, there is the neuter, masculine and feminine gender. Many person nouns in English are capable of expressing both feminine and masculine person genders by way of the pronominal correlation in question. These are referred to as nouns of the common gender. The nouns can show the sex of their reference lexically, either by combining with certain notional words or by suffixal derivation.

The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to the singular form. The strong member of this binary opposition is plural. Its productive formal mark is suffix s, es.The semantic content of the unmarked form enables grammaticians to speak of the zero suffix of the singular. The other non-productive ways of expressing the number opposition are vowel interchange: goose-geese; correlation of individual singular and plural suffixes in some borrowed nouns. Sometimes the plural form can be homonymous with singular form: sheep-sheep, swine-swine. In some cases the meaning of the plural form can differ from the meaning of the singular form: a potato-potatoes. As the result of the comparison we conclude that the broader sememic mark of the plural should be described as the potentially dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent, while the sememic mark of the singular will be understood as the non-dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent i.e. the presentation of the referent in its indivisible entireness. There are semantic varieties of the plural forms that differ from one another in the plural quality. They may express a define set of objects, various types of the referent: fruits, peoples, wines; intensity of presentation of the idea: years and years. And the extreme point of this semantic scale is marked by the lexicalization of the plural form, i.e. by its serving as a means of rendering not specificational but purely notional difference in meaning: colours as a ‘flag’. The subclasses of uncountable nouns are referred to, respectively, as singularia tantum and pluralia tantum. In the formation of the two subclasses of these nouns the number opposition is lexically reduced either to the weak or to the strong member (pl). The singular is often referred to the absolute singular. We can’t use numerals, articles with them. The absolute singular is characteristic of the names of abstract notions (peace, love).Branches of professional activity: science, biology; collective inanimate objects, common number with uncountable singular numbers can be expressed by means of combining them with words such as: a piece of news, a bit of. These examples can be regarded as the special suppletivity in the categorial system of number.

In the sphere of the plural we must recognize the common plural form as the regular feature of the countability and the absolute plural form peculiar to the uncountable subclass of pluralia tantum nouns. The absolute plural is characteristic of the uncountable nouns which denote objects consisting of two halves; the nouns expressing some sort of collective meaning both concrete and abstract (poultry, police); the nouns denoting diseases as well as some abnormal states of the body and mind (hysterics). The absolute plural forms can be divided into set absolute plural (objects of two halves) and non-set absolute plural (the rest).

The absolute plural, by the way of functional reduction, can be presented in countable nouns having the form of the singular, in uncountable nouns having the form of the plural, and also in countable nouns having the form of the plural. The first type o is multitude plural: “The family were gathered round the table.” The second type is the descriptive uncountableplural: “The sands of the desert.”

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 3556