This article is recommended for beginners and advanced learners of English. From it you will learn what gender nouns have in English, as well as how to take into account the gender of a noun when replacing a noun with a pronoun. The article is divided into 2 parts:
You will find more information about the English noun in the reference book.
Gender of nouns in English (for beginners)
In English animate nouns are mainly feminine and masculine. The neuter gender includes infants ( babies) and animals ( animals). Pets ( pets) are masculine and feminine.
All inanimate nouns are neuter.
From a grammatical point of view, the gender of a noun must be taken into account when replacing a noun with a pronoun.
EXAMPLES
I like mine flat. It is cozy. (flat = it, flat (apartment) – inanimate noun)
Exercise 1. Fill the table. Select from the list of words those that can be replaced by he, she, it, they.
Children, a cat, animals, a man, Mary, parents, Oleg, friends, a pen, books, mother, rain, a house, rice, February, summer, a river, Peter and Mike, a dog, windows, Tuesday, woman.
| he | she | it | they |
| a man | Mary | a cat | children |
If during this exercise you are unsure whether you have used the pronoun correctly they, you are recommended to study the topic “Pronouns in English for Beginners” COMING SOON
Gender of nouns in English (for advanced students)
As mentioned earlier, animate nouns in English have masculine and feminine genders. In addition to common nouns such as boy-girl, man-woman, lord-lady, father-mother, sir-miss In the English language there are still quite a lot of words that came from other languages, for example, from French.
Historically it happened that ships and planes in English are feminine. Also the word England female.
EXAMPLES
England is proud of her poets.
What's fine yacht! She is very fast.
Masculine and feminine nouns in English
a lion - lion
a lioness – lioness (a female lion)
From a grammatical point of view, the gender of a noun must be taken into account when replacing a noun with a pronoun and when translating into Russian.
EXAMPLE
The maid-servant came to clean the room. She was very pretty.
Maid I came to clean the room. She she was very pretty.
Familiarize yourself with the tables that show the basic patterns of formation of the gender of nouns in the English language.
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Exercise 2. Write a noun of the opposite gender. Translate pairs of nouns.
son, brother, husband, nephew, uncle, king, gentleman, bride, monk, headmaster, cock, bull, actor, count, duke, emperor, god, host, tsar, prince, widow, hero, dog, boar, drake ( 25)
In English grammar, as is known, the category “gender of nouns” is absent. However, this was not always the case. In Old English, nouns had a gender category. But around 1100 the language undergoes major changes - grammatical gender disappears. Historian linguists do not have a consensus on why this happened. It is generally accepted that the reason was the invasion of Northern England by the Vikings, who spoke the Old Norse language. It is likely that many people at that time were bilingual and spoke both languages fluently.
In both Old English and Old Norse, nouns had a gender category, but sometimes the rules contradicted each other. In order to simplify communication, gendered nouns simply disappeared. Today, English nouns do not have grammatical gender forms. Moreover, adjectives, pronouns and articles accompanying a noun do not agree with the noun in terms of gender:
a little girl- little girl
a little boy- a little boy
a little ball– small ball
Masculine(masculine) – to denote masculine creatures (corresponds to the pronoun he)
father- father
boy- boy
brother- Brother
Feminine- feminine - to denote feminine creatures (corresponds to the pronoun she)
mother- mother
girl- girl
sister - sister
Neuter(neuter gender) – to denote inanimate objects and abstract concepts (correlates with the pronoun it)
table- table
lamp- lamp
kindness- kindness
friendship- friendship
Sometimes gender differences are conveyed in English by lexical means.
1. Semantics of words:
bull- bull; cow- cow
cock- rooster; hen- chicken
stallion- stallion; mare- mare
2. Compounding:
boy-friend- Friend; girl-friend- girlfriend
man-servant- servant; woman-servant- maid
tomcat- cat; pussycat- kitty
peacock- peacock; peahen— peahen
3. The derivational suffix –ess, which forms the name of female creatures from the names of male creatures:
tiger- tiger; tigress— tigress
waiter- waiter; waitress- waitress
lion- a lion; lioness- lioness
prince- prince; princess- princess
Perhaps this is the only suffix in the English language that is used to form feminine nouns - man and some animals.
Often the natural gender of an animate being is not expressed in any way.
Nouns such as teacher, servant, parent, doctor, neighbor, stranger, student, friend, clerk, novelist (writer, prose writer) denote people of both sexes – male and female.
Words that do not belong to a specific genus are also used to designate animals: eagle (eagle), bear (bear), elephant (elephant), sparrow (sparrow), wolf (wolf).
To emphasize what kind of animal - male or female - use the pronouns he (he), she (she) or special words - male (male), female (female):
he-wolf- wolf; she-wolf— she-wolf
male-elephant- elephant; female-elephant— elephant
cock-sparrow- sparrow; hen-sparrow— sparrow
Gender of nouns denoting animals
1. Almost all such nouns (birds, fish, insects and reptiles) can be classified as neuter. They correspond to the pronoun it.
2. Sometimes in classical English literature you can find examples where larger animals are classified as masculine, and smaller animals are classified as feminine.
Let me give you a few examples
The eagle left his rocky nest. — The eagle left its rocky nest.
The elephant lifted his mighty trunk. – The elephant raised its mighty trunk.
The cat has upset her milk. – The cat knocked over her milk.
3. Animals are also classified as feminine when they want to emphasize the maternal instinct:
The mother Bear, still on her hind legs, came slowly towards me… (Seton-Thompson). The mother bear, still on her hind legs, slowly approached me.
4. In fairy tales, the gender of an animal, as a rule, depends on its characteristics: male creatures usually have a number of advantages.
Let me give you an example:
“Wait a minute,” said the monkey proudly, “I can climb.” He ran quickly up the tree and threw the rich ripe fruit to the ground. “Wait a minute,” said the monkey proudly, “I can climb trees.” She quickly ran up the tree and began throwing ripe fruits onto the ground.
But every rule has exceptions that should be remembered
And here they are – two masculine nouns:
canary- canary
fly- fly
Gender of nouns denoting certain inanimate objects and abstract concepts
1. Sometimes inanimate objects and abstract concepts are personified. In this case, they become masculine or feminine.
The nouns moon (moon) and earth (earth) are feminine, sun (sun) is masculine.
2. Nouns denoting sea and river vessels are feminine: ship (ship), boat (boat), steamer (steamer).
3. Other vehicles can also be feminine, but only for those who work on them - coachman, driver:
carriage- carriage, carriage
coach- mail coach
car- automobile
4. The names of countries are usually assigned to the feminine gender, unless we are talking about a geographical territory, which clearly follows from the example.
The Crimea is known for her fruits. – Crimea is famous for its fruits.
Germany sent her delegation to the congress. Germany sent its delegation to the congress.
BUT! Singapore is an island; it is washed by the South China Sea. Singapore is an island. It is washed by the South China Sea.
5. In fiction, abstract concepts that are associated with strength and cruelty are usually masculine: anger, death, fear, war.
Those nouns that are associated with the concepts of beauty, tenderness, femininity are feminine: spring (spring), peace (calmness, silence), kindness (kindness), dawn (dawn).
BUT! In spoken language, of course, all these concepts are correlated with the neuter pronoun it.
Gender- Genus
Masculine gender - Masculine
Feminine gender - Feminine
Neuter gender - Neuter gender
English gender is the most contested grammatical noun category among linguists. There is no formal gender in English. It is believed that the category of gender in English completely disappeared by the end of the Middle English period (mid-11th - late 15th centuries). There is not such an abundance of rules as in the Russian language. Almost all gender differentiation comes down to the designation of biological sex by lexical and word-formation means.
However, there are some rules regarding the gender of English nouns:
1. Animate nouns (in this context this concept refers only to a person) have a feminine or masculine gender depending on their gender and can be replaced by the personal pronouns he/she.His father is a builder. His father is a builder.
He is a builder. He is a builder.
2. Animal names are neuter and can be replaced by the pronoun it. Only in cases where it is necessary to clarify the gender of the animal, the pronouns he/she are used.
A mouse is in my room. There is a mouse in my room.
It is in my room. She's in my room.
My friend has got a dog. My friend has a dog.
His nickname is Barbos. His nickname is Barbos.
3. All inanimate nouns are neuter and can be replaced by the pronoun it, except for the names of vehicles such as:
ship ship, vessel
boat boat, ship
car car, automobile
They are usually feminine and are replaced by the pronoun she.
4. A number of nouns form the feminine gender by adding the masculine gender to the word:
A. Endings -ess
host - hostess
tiger - tigress tiger - tigress
actor - actress
b. One more word
cat - lady-cat cat - cat
goat - nanny-goat goat - goat
First of all, it should be noted that in English there is no grammatical category of gender as such. At the same time, the following main trend is observed: the vast majority of nouns are of an inanimate type (table - table, conversation - conversation, tree - tree, armchair - chair, etc.) and most of the animate vocabulary units that do not indicate specific female or male (bird (bird), cat (cat), dog (dog)), are classified as neuter and, within the framework of speech communication, are often replaced by the pronoun it. -
The conversation happened to be rather hard. Though it was helpful as well. - The conversation turned out to be quite difficult. However, he was also quite helpful.
The cat looked very pretty. It was busy, drinking milk. (The cat looked extremely cute. She was busy lapping up milk).
In turn, nouns that clearly designate persons belonging to the male gender (boy (boy), brother (brother), uncle (uncle), etc.) are considered to belong to the masculine gender and in speech are often replaced by he (My uncle is a true professional, he uses all his potential in his work. - My uncle is a true professional, in his work he uses all his potential), and units indicating female persons (sister, mistress (beloved), aunt (aunt), mother (mother), etc.), are considered in terms of their belonging to the feminine domain, often replacing them with the pronoun she (His mistress is a true treasure, she is really very devoted to him - His beloved is a real treasure, she is truly very devoted to him.).
As for animate nouns in English, there is no clear distinction between them in relation to belonging to a certain generic category. The fact is that nouns like (a) doctor (doctor, doctor), (a) scientist (male scientist, female scientist), (a) neighbor (neighbor, neighbor), etc. can equally denote belonging to both the feminine and masculine gender. He is a famous scientist (He is a famous scientist). - She has achieved much success as a scientist (She has achieved great success as a scientist).
In view of this, often in order to more clearly indicate the gender of any specific noun of an animate type (referring to people or animals), so-called gender determiners of the type are placed immediately before it: he, man, boy, she, girl , woman (she-cat (cat); woman-doctor (female doctor); girl-friend (girlfriend); man-doctor (male doctor); he-dog (dog), etc. - John introduced me to his new friend, she happened to be a famous woman-doctor. (John introduced me to his new friend, she turned out to be a famous woman-doctor).
It is also sometimes possible to observe the process of formation of feminine vocabulary units from certain nouns in the masculine form by adding the corresponding affix -ess to their stems: lion - lioness (lion - lioness); actor - actress (actor - actress); poet - poetess (poet - poetess). However, this method cannot be considered as sufficiently productive.
Of certain interest is also the fact that vocabulary units that denote the names of planets, ships, countries (if interpreted as economic or political entities, but if a geographical name is meant, then it will refer to the neuter gender and be replaced by it) are classified as feminine and in speech replaced by the pronoun she (she). - Have you ever seen our pleasure boat? - She is so remarkable and amazing. -Have you ever seen our yacht? She is so wonderful and amazing. China is a really strong country. Her potential is high enough. (China is indeed a very strong country. It has great potential.)
List of factual material
1. Vinokurova L.P. English grammar. Uchpedgiz, 1978.
2. Zhigadlo I.N., Ivanova I.P., Iofik L.L. Modern English. M., 1996.
3. Mincoff M. An English grammar. Sofia, 1958.
