Category of Gender

Gender plays a relatively minor part in English grammar. This category does not find regular morphological expression. Linguistic scholars as a rule deny the existence of gender in English as a grammatical category and stress its purely semantic character.

According to some language analysts (B. Ilyish, F. Palmer, and E. Morokhovskaya), nouns have no category of gender in Modern English.

Still, other scholars (M. Blokh, J. Lyons) admit the existence of the category of gender. Prof. Blokh states that the category of gender in English is expressed with the help of the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the third person. The recognition of gender as a grammatical category is logically independent of any particular semantic association.

The category of gender is based on two oppositions: the upper opposition is general, it functions in the whole set of nouns and divides them into person and non- person nouns. The lower opposition is partial. It functions in the subset of person nouns only and divides them into masculine and feminine nouns. As a result of the double oppositional correlation, in Modern English a specific system of three genders arises: the neuter, the masculine, and the feminine genders. Besides, in English there are many person nouns capable of expressing both feminine and masculine genders by way of the pronominal correlation. These nouns comprise a group of the so-called “common gender” nouns (Fig. 37).

Fig. 37

There are several ways of expressing gender distinctions in Modern English (Fig. 38):

• The distinction of male, female and neuter may correspond to the lexical meaning of the noun.

• English nouns can show the sex of their referents through suffixal derivation.

• English nouns can show the sex of their referents by means of being combined with certain notional words used as sex indicators.

Fig. 38

There are also some traditional associations of certain nouns with gender. These are apparent in the use of personal or possessive pronouns:

• Moon and earth are referred to as feminine, sun as masculine.

• The names of vessels (ship, boat, steamer, ice-breaker, cruiser, etc.) are referred to as feminine.

• The names of vehicles (car, carriage, coach) may also be referred to as feminine, especially by their owners, to express their affectionate attitude to these objects.

• The names of countries, if the country is not considered as a mere geographical territory, are referred to as feminine.

Category of Article Determination

The article is a function word. It means it has no lexical meaning and is devoid of denotative function.

The article is a form word that serves as a noun determiner. Since the article is a noun determiner and the noun is the headword in a noun phrase, the syntactical role of the article consists in marking off a noun or a noun phrase as part of the sentence.

The morphological value of the article lies in indicating the substantivization of other parts of speech, mainly adjectives or participles, also pronouns, adverbs, numerals.

In the light of the oppositional theory the system of articles in English is described as one consisting of three articles – the definite article, the indefinite article, and the zero article (Fig. 39).

Fig. 39

The article is one of the main means of conveying the idea of definiteness and indefiniteness.

The indefinite article can be used in three functions (Fig. 40). Each of them is realized under specific contextual conditions.

Fig. 40

In its classifying function the article serves to refer an object to the class or group of objects of the same kind.

In its generic function the indefinite article implies that the object denoted by the noun is spoken of as a representative of the class, and therefore what is said about the thing, animal, person, or notion mentioned, refers to any object of the same kind.

In its numerical function the indefinite article retains its original meaning of the cardinal numeral one.

The definite article implies that the speaker or the writer presents a person, a thing or an abstract notion as known to the listener or the reader, either from his general knowledge, or from the situation, or from the context. Hence, the two main functions of the definite article are specifying and generic (Fig. 41).

The

Definite Article

Specifying

e.g. Somebody moved in the room above.

Generic

e.g. The lion is the king of the animals.

Fig. 41

The definite article in its specifying function serves to single out an object or a group of objects from all the other objects (things, persons, animals, abstract notions) of the same kind. The specification is carried out by means of a restrictive attribute, of the preceding context, the situation or the meaning of the noun.

The definite article in its generic function refers the following noun to the whole class of objects of the same kind.

In most cases the zero article performs the same functions as the indefinite one. The difference is that the combinability of the latter is restricted to the group of countable nouns used in the singular form, whereas the zero article combines with uncountable nouns and countable nouns in the plural.

The plural form without an article corresponds to the classifying and generic uses of the indefinite article and sometimes to the generic use of the definite article (Fig. 42).

When used with the zero article, the noun loses its general grammatical meaning of thingness to a certain degree and acquires the meaning of qualitativeness. For example, the nouns “day” and “night” used with the zero article stand for “light” and “darkness” rather than time units.

The

Zero Article

Classifying

e.g. We saw men in the distance.

Generic

e.g. Man conquers nature.

Fig. 42