Category of Gender (expression of gender)

In modern English gender as a grammatical category is characteristic of the 3-d person singular of the personal and reflexive pronouns: he - she - it; himself - herself - itself.

The division of nouns into masculine, feminine and neuter nouns (father, mother, table) is not grammatical but semantic.

The only gender - forming suffix of the feminine gender '-ess' is limited in use (actress, tigress, lioness). The masculine forming suffix '-er' is added only to one noun - widow - widower.

English nouns denoting animals are usually referred to neuter gender as nouns denoting inanimate things (Where is the cat? - It is in the garden).

When the idea of sex is stressed, such nouns may be of masculine or feminine gender, and sex if often shown by special words, i.e. lexically: Tom - cat, she - cat, lady - cat, male - elephant, he - dog, etc.

In poetry and high prose Engish nouns get gender reference when personified (love, sun, hatred, anger (masculine), moon (feminine)).

This is a traditional personification which originates from Latin literature. In English fables, fairy tales, nouns are personified and get gender at the writer's will: Next day the Rabbit went to see his friend the Sable; she had many daughters.

Feminine gender is given to a noun denoting an animal, bird or insect when maternal instinct is referred to: e.g. A bird betrays her nest when trying to conceal it.

When abstract nouns are personified, masculine gender is given to nouns denoting strength, strong feelings (anger, death, fear, war), feminine gender - to nouns associated with the idea of gentleness, beauty, peace (spring, kindness, dawn, etc).

In English soldiers' and sailors' slang nouns denoting vessels and vehicles are referred to feminine gender affectionally: She is a good boat. The new ship has started on her maiden voyage.

Category of Animateness - Inanumateness

This lexico-grammatical category divides objects into animate and inanimate things - living beings and lifeless objects of nature, events, facts, properties, actions, etc.

Modern English has no grammatical means of expressing this category but in noun it is expressed lexico-grammatcally through suffixes -or, -eer, -ee, -ist, -ite: Marxist, Kirovite, doctor, refugee, engineer, sexist.

In pronouns it is expressed lexically, by the second component in -body, -one, -thing. In reflexive pronouns it is expressed by the first component: himself, itself.

The category of animateness of pronouns is expressed in the opposites as follows:

personal: he, she - it;

possessive: his, her - its

his, hers - its;

reflexive: himself, herself - itself;

interrogative: who - what;

conjunctive: who - what;

whoever - whatever;

relative: who - which;

indefinite: somebody - something;

someone - something;

anyone - anything;

definite: everybody - everything;

negative: nobody - nothing;

no one - nothing.

Animateness - inanimateness is often expressed in nouns syntactically, i.e. when nouns denoting animate things are correlated with the pronouns she, he, who, whose, while nouns denoting inanimate objects are correlated with the pronouns it, its, itself, what, which, etc.

E.g. Еhe table is good, but it is expensive. The man is her, he is down.

Professor Yartseva finds another grammatical category in English nouns - that of activeness - passiveness which is revealed syntactically too, in the anaphoric use of the pronouns she, her, whose, who, it, its, which.

E.g. Englang has sent her representative to the conference (political agent). England is in the West. Its territory is small (mere territory).

The difference between active and passive nouns is also seen in the choice of the prepositional phrases with 'by', 'with' or ‘-of’, and the genitive case morpheme: e.g. The tree was burnt down by lightning (active). The ground is covered with snow (passive). The roof of the house is red (passive). The man's hat was on the table (active).

To conclude, in modern English the category of gender has been replaced by the category of animateness - inanimateness (activeness - passiveness).