4 – 26.10.11

permission – uncountable

GENDER

she, he, it

• Masculine

• famine

• neuter / neutral

In English gender of the nouns reflects nature (2 biological sexes)

boy – masculine

girls – famine

things without sex – natural gender

My teacher told me to wait for him / her

teacher – dual gender noun

• single gender nouns – may be just she or he or it

• dual gender nouns – may be she & he

• triple gender nouns – may be she & he & it

dual gender =/= double gender

She used with inanimate objects

• countries – when we talk in a sense of mother country

• ships & cars

• England has no sense of her / its place in the world – with name of country, motherland – sth positive

• From this map of England you can see that it / *she lies north of the 50th parallel. - used geographically – you cannot use she

• England has won its / their / ? her first victory over Australia – for some speakers correct, for some not, as a team, we're emotionally attached to national teams, though for most ppl use of her is too much

IT should replace nouns which described objects have no sexual features but:

The bull turned its / his head – bull is an animal which is clearly male bull ←→ cow

The baby lost his / her / its rattle – its is less used

Single-gender nouns:

• single-gender masculine nouns – he

  • nouns referring to male human beings only

• single-gender famine nouns – she

  • nouns referring to female human beings

• single-gender neutral nouns – it

  • nouns referring to objects, places and abstract ideas

God – goddess

waiter – waitress

hero – heroine

widower – widow

^ are morphologically marked for gender

husband – wife

brother – sister

son – daughter

^ morphologically unmarked for gender

Dual-gender nouns:

• Dual-gender masculine / famine nouns

  • fire-fighter, police officer, teacher etc

• Dual-gender masculine / neutral nouns

  • names of male animals

• Dual-gender famine / neutral nouns

  • names of countries

  • female animals

  • names of ships

  • other nouns when they are personified

Triple-gender nouns:

• young human beings (child baby etc.)

• names of animals which we do not use with different sexes – cat

Dual-gender masculine/famine nouns

My teacher wants to see me – we know if it's a he or she

I'm having lunch with a friend from college - we know if it's a he or she

Someone has borrowed my pen – don't know if it's he or she

No-one in the class had noticed the mistake - don't know if it's he or she

If we cannot say if something is a he or she:

1. sex-neutral 'he'

2. sex-neutral 'she' – used ages ago

3. coordinated forms 'she or he'

4. composite forms (in writing) – 's/he', '(s)he'

5. singular 'they' – colloquial

6. avoidance – use of plurals

There's a group of nouns that don't belong to any class - Collective nouns – it/they

The team has won again. It's now the leading team in Poland; team – it's

The team are very happy about their victory; team – their – players, members