Gender distinction

1. Male and female counterparts only to personal and higher animate nouns
brother x sister stallion x mare
mother x father dog x bitch
® named by separate lexical item

These usually have dual-gender (hyperonym) man x woman ® person
boy x girl ® child
father x mother ® parent
stallion x mare ® horse
dog x bitch ® dog
brother x sister ® sibling
son x daughter ® offspring

2. Personal counterparts morphologically marked
hero x heroin usher x usherette
waiter x waitress actor x actress

s, ed, in adopted from French
Usually it’s the feminine gender which is marked widow x widower
bride x bridegroom

3. Personal and higher animal counterparts morphologically unmarked but contain distinctive elements
of compounds
policeman x policewoman billy-goat x goat
tom cat x pussy cat boyfriend x girlfriend
gentleman doctor x lady doctor
Also used when people mean that it’s necessary to make clear who you are talking about when you call about
dual-gender nouns
In these days forms with compounds are considered as discrimination so it’s replaced by hyperonym
chairman x chairwoman ® chairperson
Þ part of political correctness in language

4. Personification
Dealing inanimates as they would be animate ® we refer to objects as he and she
Expresses emotional and personal attitude
It occurs with: machines, ships, cars ® she
natural phenomena (son, moon) ® grammatical gender derived from Latin, usually in
poetry
abstractions with positive connotations (liberty, virtue) ® she
abstractions with negative connotations (death, despair, anger) ® he