Gender, sex, and society. On the formation and usage of feminine forms in Polish and Slovenian
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21574081 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maria Wtorkowska (0000-0001-9317-2490, University of Ljubljana, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Pages | 61-80 |
| Publication date | 2020-12-23 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Acta Universitatis Lodziensis Kształcenie Polonistyczne Cudzoziemców (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0860-6587 • E-ISSN: 2449-6839 |
| Publisher | Uniwersytet Lodzki (University of Lodz) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.18778/0860-6587.27.02 |
| OpenAlex | W3115800809 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
The aim of this article is to highlight selected differences in the formation and usage of feminine names, mainly names of professions, titles, and positions, between Polish and Slovenian. Apart from the traditional ones, I shall also discuss more recent modes of derivation of feminine names in both languages and their formal characteristics. The issue of sex is related in both languages to the grammatical category of the gender of personal nouns, though it is more common in Polish. In the language, which, in fact, is referred to by its native users as ojczysty (adjectival form with the stem ‘ojciec’ meaning ‘father’) while a Slovenian would refer to their native language as materinski (derived from mother), there exists an additional opposition of names of men vs. names of non-men (including women), which means there is a special privileged position of masculine personal forms over other forms, one which is not found in Slovenian. In Slovenian, the previously used neutral masculine form when referring to both men and women, being the shortest and morphologically least complicated, is no longer viewed as non-marked, and in some documents, it is being replaced with the feminine form. I shall discuss the changes which have occurred in terms of the formation and application of feminine forms, starting with their masculinisation as a sign of women’s emancipation, through the intention to eliminate the asymmetry in the word formation of those names viewed within the context of gender/sex issues in language, to the reasons for blocking feminine derivation. I shall also mention the modes for neutralising gender and the device of splitting, the rules of which, in both languages, have not yet been sufficiently defined
Grammatical Gender · Linguistics · Masculinity · Noun · Proper noun · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender Studies in Language · History · Law · Linguistics and language evolution · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology
| Highly cited | No |
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