Introduction

In a previous discussion, we treated SPECIAL PLURALITY as an aspect of NUMBER. Today, we examine GENDER and PERSON which play important roles in English communication. Indeed, knowledge of GENDER and PERSON helps us maintain logic and avoid ambiguity in the construction of sentences, clauses, and phrases. Besides, GENDER and PERSON provide the basis for enhancement of comprehension and avoidance of SEXIST LANGUAGE, a new concept in modern English usage.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this discussion, fellow learners and readers should be able to gain an improved understanding of:

·Gender and types

·Person and types

Gender

Gender is a grammatical category in which a noun, a pronoun, and sometimes an adjective is masculine, feminine or neuter. Genders in English are comparatively simpler since they do not affect all the lexical categories.

Generic nouns
Most nouns in English are generic/neuter. However, gender is sometimes shown by different wording or different form of certain nouns. A noun is generic or neuter if it can be used as either masculine or feminine:

Below are examples:

cousin	teenager	teacher	doctor
cook	student	parent	friend
relation	colleague	partner	leader

 

Examples in usage:

• Azindoo is a serious student. He is a serious student.
• Azinpaga is an intelligent student. She is an intelligent student.

It is possible to make the distinction by adding the words “male” or “female.”

For example:

• A male student, a female student.

Gender by wording: This refers to gender shown in the structure of some words. Conventionally, almost all these words have different lexical structure for masculine and different lexical structure for feminine. Among them are as follows:

Masculine	Feminine
man father uncle boy husband	woman mother aunt girl wife

 

Gender by form: In this case, one word of unique semantic and grammatical properties is involved. However, the gender is determined by the form of the word. Generally, different forms of morphemes are added to the masculine gender to get the feminine one and vice versa in some cases. Examples are the following:

              Masculine                                             Feminine

              Actor                                                     Actress

              Hero                                                      Heroine

              Waiter                                                   Waitress

             Widower                                                Widow             

In adjectives, a classic example of gender types is “handsome” for masculine and “beautiful” for feminine. But sometimes any of the adjectives could be used for any of the genders for figurative effects.

It is instructive to state that advocates of gender equality are opposed to the gender by form. To them it amounts to what they call “Sexist Language”, which must not be accepted in modern usage.

Person

This is a linguistic category used to distinguish between the speaker or writer of a piece of information and those to whom or about whom he/she is speaking or writing. It is implemented in English language by personal and non-personal pronouns in three categories. They are:

• First Person: This refers to the one(s) doing the speaking. (I, me, mine, we, us, ours)
• Second Person: This refers to the one(s) spoken to, i.e. directly addressed. (you, yours)
• Third Person: This refers to the one(s) spoken about, be they human, animal, vegetable, mineral, or abstract. (it, its, he/she him/her, his/her they, theirs, them.)

It is important to mention that these persons are broadly divided into two – singular persons and plural persons. Below is an illustration:

Person                            Subjective                Objective                possessive

• First Person Singular              I                            Me                         My, Mine
• Second Person Singular          You                      You                       Your, Yours
• Third Person Singular            He/She/It                Him/Her/It               His/her/hers/Its
• First Person Plural                 We                         Us                          Our, Ours
• Second Person Plural             You                       You                        Your, Yours
• Third Person Plural               They                      Them                       Their, Theirs

Conclusion

Summing up, we humbly remind fellow learners and readers of the need to master the grammatical GENDER and PERSON to avoid logical and structural errors in written and spoken communication.

W’ Allaahu A’lam

By Abubakar Mohammed Marzuq Azindoo, Coordinator of Students and University Relations, University of Applied Management (UAM), Germany – Ghana Campus, McCarthy Hill, Accra and Tamale

Email: azindoo200@gmail.com Tell: 0244755402