11.549, Qs: Gender/Non-standard Eng, Eng/Judgements Needed

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-11-549. Sun Mar 12 2000. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 11.549, Qs: Gender/Non-standard Eng, Eng/Judgements Needed

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1)
Date:  Sun, 12 Mar 2000 10:26:34 +0100
From:  Peter Siemund <siemund at zedat.fu-berlin.de>
Subject:  Gender assignment in non-standard English

2)
Date:  Sun, 12 Mar 2000 22:05:28 +0900
From:  Atsuko Umesaki <umesaki at pigeon.tezukayama-u.ac.jp>
Subject:  change of English usage

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Sun, 12 Mar 2000 10:26:34 +0100
From:  Peter Siemund <siemund at zedat.fu-berlin.de>
Subject:  Gender assignment in non-standard English

It has been noticed several times that the gender systems of non-standard
Englishes may substantially deviate from the "natural gender system" found
in standard English. This is clearly shown by cases of anaphoric reference
of the masculine and feminine pronoun (he, she) to NPs denoting inanimate
objects, as e.g. the car - she, the storm - she, the wave - she or the tree
- he, the bee - he, the chair - he. Some of these deviations are obviously
systematic, vehicles being mostly feminine, plants mostly masculine, etc.,
a few can be motivated historically by comparing the gender of the relevant
nouns to the one they had in Old and Middle English, but the great majority
of cases remains idiosyncratic, at least the evidence presently available
does not allow sweeping generalizations. The overlap between Present Day
English and its earlier historical stages is surprisingly low, most cases
of non-natural gender in Middle English being masculine.

Since only an extensive body of naturally occurring examples can further
this issue, I would like to invite the linguistic community to keep a
lookout for such cases of non-natural gender assignment in English and,
provided you can spare this minute, send the relevant examples to my email
address. I will compile a summary and make it publicly available.

Many thanks in advance,
- Peter Siemund.

- ---------------------------------------------------
Peter Siemund
Institut fuer Englische Philologie
Freie Universitaet Berlin
Gosslerstrasse 2-4
14195 Berlin

siemund at zedat.fu-berlin.de
http://www.philologie.fu-berlin.de/~siemund


-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Sun, 12 Mar 2000 22:05:28 +0900
From:  Atsuko Umesaki <umesaki at pigeon.tezukayama-u.ac.jp>
Subject:  change of English usage

Our group is interested in the change of modern English usage,
and assumes that some of the expressions given in English-Japanese
dictionaries are getting obsolete. We are looking for native speakers of

English who will answer our 6 questions about the usage of English.
Please contact umesaki at tezukayama-u.ac.jp to receive the
questionnaire.

Atsuko F. Umesaki
umesaki at tezukayma-u.ac.jp
$B!!(J

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