CC BY
97
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20534/EJLL-17-1-9-14
Qanta Agnesa, University of Prishtina, Kosovo University of Tirana, Albania E-mail: cantaagnesa@gmail.com
Natural Gender of English Nouns in Contrast with Grammatical Gender of Albanian Nouns
Abstract: There is a generally accepted view that English nouns have natural gender which stands in contrast with grammatical gender ofAlbanian nouns. This article examines the category of gender in English and Albanian through a contrastive analysis, with the aim of highlighting the differences and similarities between the gender of nouns in English and Albanian. Being a specific category in both languages, the results indicate that neither the gender of English nouns is entirely natural, as it fulfills the criterion of agreement which gives it a level of grammaticalisation, although a very low one, nor the gender ofAlbanian nouns is entirely grammatical because it follows the biological sex distinction of people and animals. Furthermore, except the differences which are comprehensible considering the morphological structure of these languages, they also share some similarities which concern some significant elements of the gender system.
Keywords: gender, nouns, natural, grammatical, differences, similarities, English, Albanian.
1. Introduction lost through its transition from Old English to Modern
The category of gender in the nominal system of the English. However, the source of debates concerning the English language is considered an unsteady category as it gender of nouns in English most likely originates from an
has been the source of debates among different native and foreign researchers of English, with the majority of researchers arguing that English nouns have natural gender based on the semantic criterion, and with the rest of them opposing this view. The former share the view that Old English had grammatical gender which has been been lost in the transition from Old English to Modern English.Nevertheless, the latter argue that the grammatical gender of nouns has not been completely lost, and they give some quite solid evidence that supports their view. In Albanian, on the other hand, there have not been discussions or debates of the kind because the category of gender is consolidated as a grammatical category of nouns, even though it is specific, because unlike other grammatical categories, it is both an inflectional and a lexical category.
2. Natural Gender of English Nouns in Contrast with Grammatical Gender of Albanian Nouns
The view that English nouns have natural gender, whereas Albanian nouns have grammatical gender, which has been generally acknowledged by the majority of researchers, is being questioned especially in the recent years thanks to the valuable contribution of prominent researchers in both languages.Concerning the gender of English nouns, most of the researchers accept the view that English had grammatical gender which it
unsystematic transition from a grammatical gender system in Old English to a natural gender system in Modern English, responsible for certain inconsistencies, which H. Platzer refers to as "conflicting tendencies" [1, 36], that have characterized the gender assignment in English.
The prominent grammarian, Greenbaum supports the view that Old English had grammatical gender, but he argues that Modern English has natural gender because "Nowadays, English has no classes of nouns that signal gender differences through their inflections, nor do determiners or adjectives vary according to the gender of nouns" [2, 107]. His view is shared by many other researchers such as Quirk [3, 99], Palmer [4, 37], Lyons [5, 283], Ilyish [6, 64-65], Brinton [7, 105], Curzan [8, 29], Kies [9, 89], and many others. As early as 1872, in his discussions on the values of grammatical categories in linguistics, Bleek had argued the loss of grammatical gender in English [10]. The same view, even though not directly, but through discussions about the category of gender in Indo-European languages, is expressed byJespersen who describes gender as a caos in which it is impossible to find rules [11, 347], Bloomfield who claims that "The gender-categories of most Indo-European languages... do not agree with anything in the practical world." [12, 271], and later by M. Ibrahim who argues that grammatical gender is "an accident of linguistic history" [13, 50],
W. Frawley who considers gender as a "cross-linguistic generalization" [14, 100], etc.
Nevertheless, G. G. Corbett, in his work "Gender", emphasizes that the determining criterion of gender is agreement [15, 4]. In his view, to say that a language has three genders implies that there are three classes of nouns which can be distinguished syntactically by the agreements they take [15, 4]. The same line of argument is followed by Huddleston and Pullum who claim that English does have gender which is not an inflectional category, but it is based on purely pronoun agreement, which means that it is weakly grammaticalised [16, 485-486]. As such an agreement is present in the English nominal system, it cannot be denied that English nouns do have the grammatical category of gender, which is surely not as grammaticalised as that of Albanian nouns, or that of other inflectional languages. Long before them, the Russian researcher, Blokh argued in favour of the existence of the grammatical category of gender in English, which, in his view, is expressed by the correlation of nouns with personal pronouns of the third person (he, she it), and which in turn results with three genders: neuter, masculine and feminine [17, 53-54]. He argues that this classification has "serious grammatical relevance" [17, 53]. Blokh admits the existence of the fourth, "common gender", but he emphasizes that when it is not necessary to indicate the sex of the person, nouns that belong to this gender are commonly treated as masculine, and they correlate with the masculine third person pronoun [17, 55].
In Albanian, on the other hand, according to "Grama-tika e Gjuhes Shqipe 1", written by a group ofprominent Albanian grammarians, the category of gender is defined as one of the most characteristic grammatical categories of nouns [18, 88], with stress on "grammatical". New-mark, Hubbard and Prifti make the difference between gender and other grammatical categories of nouns because, except an inflectional category, gender is also a lexical category [19, 130]. Likaj and £abej, on the other hand, argue that, although it is considered a grammatical category, in Albanian, the gender of nouns is "more a lexical/structural division than a grammatical category because it does not have different morphological forms for the same noun like other grammatical categories." [20, 73]. Considering the nature of the gender of nouns in Albanian, this is so far the most plausible definition because it implies that the gender assignment of nouns in Albanian can also be based on the meaning of the word, i. e. the natural sex of people and animals, and it is not arbitrary. Consequently, nouns of animate beings are either masculine or feminine. Thus, males
are assigned to the masculine gender, and females to the feminine gender. This indicates that the gender of nouns in Albanian also has elements of natural gender which approximate it to the gender of nouns in English. Therefore, one can deduce that neither the gender of nouns in English is entirely natural, nor that the gender of nouns in Albanian is entirely grammatical.
English and Albanian show several differences with regard to the category of gender of nouns. The first one is the number of genders. English nouns have four genders: masculine, feminine, neuter, and common, whereas Albanian nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The criteria used for gender assignment indicate another difference. In English, nouns randomly follow the semantic criterion, although one cannot ignore the syntactic criterion, or agreement, as stated by Corbett, whereas in Albanian, they follow the morphological and syntactic criteria which include [18, 90]:
a) the case endings of the indefinite and definite singular nouns;
b) the final sounds of the stem;
c) adjectives and other determining words such as pronouns ky, kjo, ai, ajo, im, ime, etc.
Based on these criteria, nouns in English and Albanian are classified into these classes:
In English
1. Masculine nouns — that may be replaced by the pronouns he, him, may be used with reference to his, himself, and represent males. E. g.
man boy father son uncle nephew John Mr. Gordon
2. Feminine nouns — that may be replaced by the pronouns she, her, may be used with reference to her, herself, and represent females. E. g.
mother daughter aunt niece Anne Mrs. Anderson
3. Neuter nouns — that may be replaced by the pronoun it, may be used in reference to its, itself, and represent animals and all inanimates. E. g.
city house school book computer table flower dog cat
4. Common nouns — that may be replaced by the pronouns he/she, him/her, may be used in reference to his/her, himself/herself, and represent both males and females, i. e. people, without regard to their biological sex. E. g.
parent child friend neighbour student teacher doctor patient
In Albanian
1. Masculine nouns — that take the case endings -i or -u. E. g. djali (the son), babai (the father), Genti, Orgesi, njeriu (the man), miku (the friend), veriu (the north), jugu (the south), trafiku (the traffic), gjaku (the blood), etc.
2. Feminine nouns — that take the case endings -a or -ja. E. g. shtepia (the house), dhoma (the room), vajza (the girl), fjala (the word), keshtjella (the castle), maca (the cat), lopa (the cow), delja (the sheep), hareja (the joy), mar-reveshja (the agreement), etc.
3. Neuter nouns — classified into two subclasses [19,134]:
a) Articulated deverbal nouns derived from the substantivization of participles: te degjuar - te degjuarit (listening), te menduar - te menduarit (thinking), te mesuar -te mesuarit (learning), te folur - te folurit (speaking), etc.
b) Articulated nouns derived from the substantivization ofadjectives:te nxehte - te nxehtet (the hot), te ftofte - te ftohtet (the cold), te bardhe - te bardhet (the white), te kuq -te kuqte (the red), te zi - te zite (the black), etc.
However, the essential difference between the gender of nouns in English and Albanian does not concern the number of genders or the criteria used to assign the genders in these languages. It is rather the classes of nouns that are included in one or the other gender in these languages. Thus, in English, nouns denoting people typically belong to the masculine, feminine or common gender, whereas everything else belongs to the neuter gender. In Albanian, on the other hand, not only the nouns denoting people, but also all animates and inanimates belong to the masculine or feminine gender, whereas the neuter gender is limited to only a few nouns. Therefore, in Albanian, almost all nouns are either masculine or feminine. In English, the masculine and the feminine gender are far more limited than they are in Albanian, but the neuter gender of English nouns is incomparably broader than that of Albanian nouns because it includes all inanimates-things, abstract concepts as well as some of the animates- animals. The phenomenon of including animals in the neuter gender is somehow ambiguous because it could be quite easy to follow their natural gender, i. e. their biological sex and assign their gender based on it. Thus, horse is a neuter gender noun because it is used to denote an animal without specification of sex, even though there are forms of this noun for the masculine gender - stallion, and the feminine gender - mare. According to Huddleston and Pullum, such a noun is called a triple gender noun, but this does not mean that the noun has three genders, but that these three forms of the noun are compatible with all three singular pronouns he, she, and it [16, 489].
The common gender of English nouns, that Albanian nouns do not have, is perhaps the most problematic gender in English because it lacks a pronoun for the third person singular which could be used to replace a
common gender noun. Therefore, such a noun is usually replaced by these pronouns: he, they or he/she. Nevertheless, the use of he, albeit traditionally considered "grammatically correct", has received strong criticism by the feminists, as it is seen as a form of linguistic inequality that reinforces social inequality, and it has been fairly reduced [16, 492]. The use of they, on the other hand, as well as that of its plural their, according to Brinton, violates number agreement, while the use of his or her or his/her is a recent attempt to correct this deficiency [7, 106].
Consequently, the best option, to avoid the discrimination using he, and the violation of number agreement using they, is to use third person singular masculine and feminine pronouns he/she and his/her.
Nouns in the common gender may show sex distinction by forming compounds of which one element is the gender marker [21, 198]: male nurse -female nurse, man doctor - woman doctor, landlord - landlady, boyfriend -girlfriend, etc., although, nowadays, these gender markers are usually avoided when referring to the names of professions because, firstly, they are considered mainly demeaning to women as they gratuitously imply that certain tasks are more the realm of men, and secondly, in order to promote gender equality.
According to Quirk and Greenbaum, the common gender is referred to as "dual gender "as it includes both males and females, and the class of nouns that belong to this gender is on the increase [22, 91]. However, the term "dual gender" has an entirely different meaning in Albanian. Unlike English nouns which are "faithful" to their gender assignment, in the sense that they do not change their gender, regardless of their number, in Albanian, there is a small group of masculine nouns which when shifting from singular to plural become feminine nouns and vice versa. This very interesting phenomenon occurs with several inanimate nouns which from the plural by adding the endings -e and -ra [20, 76]:
qytet - qytete - keto qytete - qytetet e medha - qytete te rendesishme
(city - cities - these cities - big cities - important cities) fshat - fshatra - ato fshatra - fshatrat e panjohura -fshatra te braktisura
(village - villages - those villages - unknown villages -abandoned villages)
English and Albanian also show certain similarities in regard to the category of gender in their nominal systems. The first similarity concerns the biological sex distinction that both languages embrace in the gender assignment of the nouns denoting people, but unlike Albanian, in
English, such nouns may also be included in the common gender. Both languages have pairs of nouns with different forms for the masculine and the feminine gender which have their equivalents in the respective languages: male/female-mashkull/femer, man/woman-burre/grua, father/mother- baba/nene, husband/wife-bashkeshort/bash-keshorte, lord/lady-zoteri/zonje, son/daughter-bir/bije, boy/girl-djale/vajze, brother/sister-vella/moter, bach-elor/spinster-beqar/beqar (e (she), etc. The pair of nouns bachelor-spinster, due to its negative connotation has been replaced by the term single. It should be emphasized that in Albanian, the masculine noun beqar - (bachelor) has beqar (e (she) - (bachelorette) as its feminine counterpart, and not leneshe - spinster, because using the term spinster to address an unmarried woman is considered offensive. But, here we come to another similarity. In Albanian, the same as in English, this pair of nouns has been replaced by the term i, e pamartuar (single) in official documents, even though it is commonly used in daily speech. Furthermore, the English term single is often used in daily speech by the young Kosovans who speak the Gheg Dialect ofAlbanian to refer to an unmarried person.
A common characteristic of the category of gender in these two languages concerns the formation of feminine nouns from masculine nouns with the addition of particular suffixes.
In English, feminine nouns are formed from masculine nouns with these suffixes:
- ess - heir-heiress, god-goddess, prince-princess, duke-duchess, count-countess, baron-baroness, host-hostess, actor-actress, waiter-waitress, etc.
- ette, - ine, - e, - enne, - euse, - ix, - ana, - ina -bachelor-bachelorette, hero-heroine, fiancé- fiancée, comedian-comedienne, masseur-masseuse, aviator-aviatrix, sultan-sultana, car-carina, etc.
Most of these feminine nouns referring to the names of professions are nowadays commonly used without these suffixes, with a few exceptions, e. g. actor-actress, but aviator-aviator, not aviator-aviatrix.
In Albanian, feminine nouns are formed from masculine nouns with these suffixes [18,92]:
- e, - e, - eshe, - ushe, - onje, - ice - qytetar-qytetare (citizen), kusheri-kusherire (cousin), professor-profesoreshe (professor), ari-arushe (bear), ujk-ujkonje (wolf), buall-buallice (buffalo), etc.
These suffixes are also used to form proper feminine nouns from proper masculine nouns.
In English - George-Georgina, Henry-Henrietta, Joseph-Josephine
In Albanian - Ilir-Ilire, Bardh-Bardhe, Edon-Edone
In both languages, formation of feminine nouns from masculine nouns is occasionally accompanied by sound changes, e. g., actor-actress, shok-shoqe.
As seen in examples in Albanian, feminine nouns which denote animals may be formed from masculine nouns adding the respective suffixes. In this regard, it should be noted that there is a similarity in English and Albanian in forming the feminine nouns from masculine nouns of certain animals, which relates to the use of the same suffixes in the respective languages:
- ess - lion-lioness, leopard-leopardess, tiger-tigress
- eshe - luan-luaneshe, leopard-leopardeshe, tiger-tigreshe
Masculine nouns may be formed from feminine nouns with suffixes, but, in both languages, this is a rather rare occurrence. In English, according to Greenbaum [2, 108] and Brinton [7, 106], there is only one such noun, namely widower, formed from widow, whereas in Albanian, there are only three such nouns: mace-macok, pate-patok, rose-rosak [18, 91].
The gender of English nouns approximates the gender of Albanian nouns in the tendency to give neuter nouns the masculine or feminine gender. Palmer refers to this tendency as "one of the more delightful eccentricities of English" which gives cars, aeroplanes, ships, and the like the feminine gender [23, 108].
However, according to Huddleston and Pullum [16, 488-489], not only ships, but also countries when they are considered as political entities as well as certain animates such as animals — dogs, cat, cow, bull, etc., and the noun baby, may use he or she instead of it, i. e. they may be treated like masculine or feminine nouns. E. g.
Kosova will carve its/her path towards a better future. It/She deserves it.
(Kosova do ta ndertoje rrugen e saj drejt nje te ardhmeje me te mire. Ajo e meriton.)
I love my old boat. It/She has never let me down.
(E dua barken time te vjeter. Ajo nuk me ka lene kurre ne balte.)
My dog Jack, is my best friend. It/He is always by my side when I need him.
(Qeni im Jack eshte miku im me i mire. Ai eshte gjith-mone prane meje kur kam nevoje per te.)
In the examples above, the gender of nouns in English coincides with the gender of their conterparts in Albanian in the sense that they use the same masculine or feminine pronouns. Nevertheless, this is a coincidence because in English, most of these nouns are treated as masculine or feminine only when there is
affection involved. However, Biber et al. argue that "familiarity or involvement" causes a shift of gender from neuter to masculine or feminine, of the nouns denoting animals [24, 317]. In Albanian, unlike English, countries can be either masculine or feminine, regardless of their being geographical or political entities, the same as ships, boats, cars, and the like.
Except the aforementioned nouns, there are some other nouns which belong to the neuter gender and may be treated as masculine or feminine when used in the literary style. Thus peace, mercy, moon, nature, earth, etc., when used in the literary style, correspond in gender with their Albanian counterparts paqe, meshire, hene, natyre, toke, etc., as they all use feminine pronouns. E. g.
Peace is what people need. It/She is one of the essential requirements for a good life.
kerkesat themelore for nje jete te mire.
However, that does not occur with sun, sea, ocean, wind, time, etc., which in English take masculine pronouns, but in Albanian, only sun (diell), sea (det), and ocean (oqean) are masculine, whereas wind (ere) and time (kohe) are feminine.
3. Conclusion
The gender of English nouns and the gender ofAlba-nian nouns show some essential differences which concern several aspects of the gender sytem. Firstly, the criteria used for gender assigments in these two languages, which in turn reveal the reason behind the use of terms "grammatical" and "natural". Secondly, the four genders of English which stand in contrast with three genders in Albanian and the types of nouns included in one or the other gender, the fact that explains the complicated task of gender assignment in English, which, unlike Albanian, tends to escape the categorical gender assignment making the gender system more prone to ambiguity.Thirdly, the treatment of animate and inanimate nouns, which is quite steady in Albanian, with strict rules of gender assignment, whereas in English, it is often dependable on sentimental involvement. However, despite the differences, there are also several similaries, the main ones being the pairs of people's names which have different forms as well as the equivalents in the respective languages, formation of common and proper nouns of the feminine gender from those of the masculine gender, and vice versa with suffixes, the sound changes that accompany such a process in both languages, etc.
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Lyons, J. (1968). Introduction to English Lingusitics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Ilyish B. A. (1971). The Structure of Modern English. Moscow, Leningrad: Просвещение. Brinton L. J. (2000). The Structure of Modern English: A Lingusitic Introduction. Volume I. Amsterdam, Philadelphia, PHL: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
8. Curzan A. (2003). Gender Shifts in the History of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
9. Kies D. (2016). Modern English Grammar. The Hyper TextBooks.
10. Bleek W. H. I. (1872). The concord, the origins of pronouns, and the formation of classes or genders of nouns. London: The Journal ofAnthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, lxiv-xc.
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13. Ibrahim M. H. (1973). Grammatical gender. Its origin and development. The Hague: Mouton.
14. Frawley W. (1992). Linguistics, Semantics. London: Routledge.
15. Corbett G. G. (1991). Gender. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
16. Huddleston R., & Pullum, G. K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
17. Blokh M. Y. (1983). A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. Moscow: Vysshaya Shkola.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20534/EJLL-17-1-14-19
Mammadova Jala Rafig, Azerbaijani University of Language E-mail: xatireaslanova@yahoo.com
Semantic correlation of English and Azerbaijani-ecological terms
Abstract: in the present article some theoretical questions related to the determination of polysemy, Homonymy and synonymy in the system of ecological terminology have been presented. Before analyzing the above mentioned problems it is necessary to put emphasis on different types of relationships of language and environment. Some of the resent trends in language studies have focused on the correlation between the biological processes of the brain and language, as well as the mental processes occurring in mind and their influence on the linguistic system (cognitive linguistics). Lately also the relationship between the peoples' environment and their language arouse interest concerning language and environment expressed by Edward Sapir and are now known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which states that the language which a person speaks influences the way the word is perceived and interacted with. In this article semantic correlation of ecological terms is investigated on the basis of comparative-typological method the research work deals with the leading semantic component in the semantic structure of a word.
In the next part of the article called "Homonymy" different view-points of the scholars of the world are enumerated and some considerations are made. Homonyms are two or more different words that coincide on spelling, pronunciation and grammatical design. (Forming M. I.1990 m. p. 68) in the last part of the article named "Synonymy" thoughts spoken on the problem of synonymy are illustrated both in English and Azerbaijani languages. Most of the authors have paid more attention to the determination of synonymy can be met. Having investigated the problem of synonymy different classification system for synonyms. As it was established by Academician V. V. Vinogradov there are three types of synonyms: Ideographical, Stylistic and Absolute. But we consider that more effective approach to the classification of synonyms may be based on the definition describing synonyms as words differing in connotations.
Keywords: Monosemy, systemic nature, semantic connection, terminology, concept
1.Introduction
Our goal in this article is to deal in detail with various types of semantic, correlation of English and Azerbaijani ecological terms. This is necessary not only because of the interest the various cases present in themselves, but also because a thorough knowledge of these possibilities helps to understand semantic structure of English and
Azerbaijani ecological terms at the present stage of their development. The scholars are right when they explain that the development and change of the semantic structure of a word is always a source of qualitative and quantitative development of the vocabulary. It is well-known that traditionally. Semantic correlation ofterms described will follow closely the dictionary classification ofM. Breal.
