2015-08-21
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| people: | man. actor. | he |
| woman, actress- | she | |
| guest, student, teacher- | he or she | |
| animals: | bull, cow | it |
| things: | chair, table. | it |
In many European languages the names of things, such as book chair, radio, table have gender: that is they are classified grammatically as masculine, feminine or neuter, although very often gender doesn't relate to sex. Grammatical gender barely concerns nouns in English. It mainly concerns personal pronouns, where a distinction is drawn between e.g.he she and It; possessive
2 Nouns
adjectives, his, her and its[> 4.1]; and relative pronouns, where a distinction is drawn between who and which [> 1.27]. The determiners [> 3.1] we use do not vary according to gender in front of nouns. We can refer to a man a woman a box, the man, the woman, the box many men, many women, many boxes
Identifying masculine and feminine through nouns
A few nouns are automatically replaced by masculine or feminine pronouns, or by it. Some of these are as follows:
Contrasting nouns describing people (replaceable by e.g. 'he/she')
bachelor/spinster, boy/girl, brother/sister, father/mother gentleman/lady, grandfather 'grandmother, grandson/granddaughter husband'wife, king/queen, man/woman monk/nun, Mr/Mrs, nephew/niece sir/madam, son/daughter, uncle/aunt
Contrasting nouns describing animals (normally replaceable by 'it')
bull/cow, cock (or rooster)/hen, dog/bitch gander/goose pig'sow ram/ewe stallion'mare
Ess' endings and other forms indicating sex/gender
A common way of indicating sex or gender is to change the ending of the masculine noun with the suffix -ess- actor/actress god/goddess heir/heiress host/hostess, prince/princess steward/stewardess, waiter/waitress. This distinction is becoming rarer so that words like author instructor and manager are now commonly used for both sexes. Some words, such as poetess, are falling into disuse because they are considered disparaging by both sexes. In a few cases, -ess endings are used for female animals, e.g. leopard/leopardess, lion/lioness, tiger/tigress Or he-'she- (stressed) is used as a prefix in e.g. he-goat/she-goat, or wolf/she-wolf
Similar references can be made with other endings, etc. as well: bndegroom/bride hero/heroine, lad/lass, landlord/landlady male'female, masseur/masseuse usher/usherette widower/widow
