The document discusses grammatical gender in languages. It explains that grammatical gender systems classify nouns and require associated words like adjectives and pronouns to take gender forms. While gender often aligns with natural or biological gender, it does not always. The document then focuses on grammatical gender in Old English, which had three genders like German, but gender was lost as the language simplified over time.

1. Grammatical Gender in English 이겨레하나 박지현

2. What is Grammatical Gender? In linguistics, ‘grammatical gender’ , also called ‘noun classes’ , are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words.

3. Example of noun classes, Animate vs. Inanimate Rational vs. Non-rational Human vs. Non-human Male vs. Other Male human vs. Other Masculine vs. Feminine vs. Non-sexed Strong vs. Weak Every noun must belong to at least one of the classes, and they are treated in the same way grammatically.

4. Grammatical gender VS. Natural gender In common nouns, grammatical gender is usually related to actual gender. ex) In Spanish, hijo(son) is masculine. hija(daughter) is feminine. This is called ‘Natural gender’. But , grammatical gender does not always coincide with real gender (natural gender) of its referent.

5. In German, the word Mädchen (= “girl”) is treated grammatically as neuter. In Spanish, the word la gente (= “the people”) is feminine, even if the term refers to a group of men.

6. Indo-European language The term “grammatical gender” is mostly used for Indo-European Language. The earliest stages of Proto-Indo-European had 2 gender, animate and inanimate. masculine vs. feminine vs. neutral

7. German language How is the grammatical gender decided? 1)Grimm : It is based on natural gender. Ex) masculine ; big living things – der wal, elefant, tiger adler feminine ; small living things – die taube, maus, blume 2)Brugmann : It is independent from natural gender. There is various standards. Ex) meaning, suffix, last spelling

8. a) Meaning -masculine ; natural phenomenon, time, money, alchol - der regen, donner, nebel, morgen, montag -feminine ; flower, fruit - die rose, banana -neutral ; material noun, super ordinate concept, aggregation - das wasser, kleid, obst, besteck, volk b) Suffix -masculine ; -er, -ig, -ling - der lehrer, essig -feminine ; -ei, -heit, -in, -keit, -schaft, -ung - die partei, freiheit, studentin -neutral ; -chen, -nis - das Mädchen, ereignis

9. Grammatical Gender in Eng 1 Old English had a system of grammatical gender similar to Modern German and French. Characteristic of Indo-European: Masculine, feminine or neuter The Gender of a noun originally had nothing to do with sex. e.g.) wif (wife, women) -> neuter Bridd (young bird) -> masculine bearn (son, bairn) -> neuter Conflict of grammatical gender with natural gender in Old English

10. Grammatical Gender in Eng 2 Characteristics 1) Inflectional language : if a noun was masculine or feminine, adjectives modifying it had to be in masculine or feminine forms too. e.g.) We sawon sumne dolne mann ond sume dole idese 2) Declension : demonstratives, adjectives, personal pronouns, interrogative, relative pronouns

11. Development of natural gender

12. Development of natural gender Loss of grammatical gender Reduction of inflections Leveling of unstressed vowels a, o, u -> e [ə] The number of distinct inflectional endings in English was drastically reduced. e.g) Weak adjective ending –a (masculine nominative), –e (neuter nominative-accusative and feminine nominative) ⇒ fell together as –e - Indicator of gender was lost! Old English: masculine nominative-accusative plurals ended in –as , feminines in –a , and short-stemmed neuters in –u ⇒ Middle English: a handful of nouns acquired the same plural endings -es

13. Modern English Gender is no longer an inflectional category in Modern Eng Continents, nations, many cities, ships, airplanes, cars, fruits ⇒ She/her (followed the gender assignments of German for words derived from it.) The only trace of the Old English gender system: Pronominal system and pronoun-antecedent in English