S
SupriyaShetty
Guest
Sir,
I need to refer to Gender and other grammatical help
I need to refer to Gender and other grammatical help
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Linguist__
Senior Member
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2009
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- Student or Learner
Sir,
I need to refer to Gender and other grammatical help
(Not a teacher)
Modern English has 'biological-' or 'natural-gender' marking, i.e. only a restricted number of living things are distinguished for gender. This is different from other language (including Old English) which have 'linguistic gender' - everything has gender: tables, chairs, houses etc.
Gender in English is only marked on nouns and pronouns. Pronouns take different forms (e.g. he, she, it). Nouns can take either different forms, or can be distinguished by specific morphemes. Examples of nouns that take different forms: mother vs. father, boy vs. girl, bull vs. cow, bridegroom vs. bride. Examples of nouns that distinguish gender by morphemes: host vs. hostess, lion vs. lioness, hero vs. heroine, widower vs. widow)
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