oppositions organized hierarchically. The first opposition is general and
opposes human, or person nouns,
distinguishing masculine and feminine gender (man – he, woman – she) and all the other, non-human,
non-person nouns, belonging to the neuter gender (tree, dog – it). The second
opposition is formed by the human nouns only: on the lower level of the
opposition the nouns of masculine gender and of feminine
gender are opposed.
Gender is a constant feature category: it is expressed not through
variable forms of words, but through nounal
classification; each noun belongs to only one of the three genders. In
addition, there is a group of nouns in English which can denote either a
female or a male in different contexts; these nouns can be substituted by
either ‘he’ or ‘she’, e.g.: president, professor, friend, etc. They constitute a separate
group of nouns – the common gender nouns. For
them the category of gender is a
variable feature category.
There are no formal marks to distinguish
the strong and the weak members in either of the gender oppositions. They can
be distinguished semantically: nouns of the neuter gender in the upper level
of the opposition is more abstract compared to masculine and feminine gender
nouns; they are the weak member of the opposition and are naturally used in
the position of neutralization. For example: The girl was a sweet little thing; “What is it over there: a man or just a tree?” On the lower level of
the opposition, masculine gender nouns are the weak member of the opposition
and can be used to denote all human beings irrespective of sex, e.g.: Man must change in the changing
world. When there is no contextual need to specify the sex of the
referent, common gender nouns are also neutrally substituted by the masculine
pronoun, e.g.: Every student
must do his best.
Besides
the cases of neutralization, the most obvious examples of oppositional
reduction in the category of gender are the cases when the weak member of the
opposition, nouns of neuter gender, are used as if they denote female or male
beings, when substituted by the pronouns ‘he’ or ‘she’.
In most cases such use is stylistically colored and is encountered in
emotionally loaded speech. It is known as the stylistic device of personification
and takes place either in some traditionally fixed contexts, e.g.: a vessel – she; or in high-flown
speech, e.g., Britain – she, the sea – she. In fairy-tales and poetic texts weak
creatures are referred to as she,
and strong or evil creature as he,
e.g.: Death is the only freedom I will know. I hear His
black wings beating about me! (Isles)