Academic literature on the topic 'Grammatical genus'

The article considers the notional nature and peculiarities of genus-species relations between the phenomena of opposition and oppositivity ; it also deals with the lexical-and-grammatica ways of expressing the latter in an English literary text. The study establishes that, besides the logical component, an opposition also expresses a subjective one, manifesting a communicants unique view on the communicative situation and thus displaying semantics of oppositivity. Unlike spatial, logical and grammatical oppositions, generally characterized by a symmetrical structure, the subjective (oppositive) opposition is asymmetrical. It is revealed that due to the structural asymmetry this kind of opposition is marked by greater semantic potential compared to logical and grammatical oppositions. It is proved that the complication of subjective oppositions with antonymous pairs, lexical and syntactical repetitions, antithetic units, oxymorons etc. extends the scope of meanings implied by them; and the use of subjective (oppositive) oppositions in a literary text themselves becomes an effective tool of contrast-building both on the lexical-grammatical and textual levels.

The specialty of hybrid nouns is their different agreement according to certain features of the agreement target. They result from a conflict within in the gender assignment system. For example, the German noun Mädchen (semi-transparent diminutive for denoting a girl) is grammatical neuter but it refers to a female person. In German, nouns denoting females are feminine but diminutives are neuter. Since both rules apply, you can refer to Mädchen with a neuter (es) but also with a feminine pronoun (sie). There are different factors which influence the agreement pattern: the linear distance between noun and pronoun and the type of agreement target. So far there are only few studies on the influence of possible non-grammatical factors such as the age of the referent. In this paper, I elaborate on those factors and present the results of a discourse completion task focusing on the influence of a sexualized context.

Im Deutschen kann das Prädikatsnomen in Numerus und Genus mit dem Subjekt übereinstimmen, muss es aber nicht. Numerus und Genus sind in den Prädikativkonstruktionen eigenständige Kategorien. Das Prädikatsnomen übernimmt vom Subjekt weder Numerus noch Genus. Das Genus des Prädikatsnomens wird durch den Zusammenhang zwischen dem Genus und Sexus des Substantivs bestimmt, der Numerus durch die Semantik.Number and gender of predicative nominal – agreement categories?In the German language, the nominal predicate may but does not have to convene in number and gender with the subject. The number and gender are independent categories in predicate structures. The predicative expression does not receive the number or the gender from the subject. The type of the predicative expression determines the dependency between the grammatical gender and the semantic gender, whereas the number is determined by the noun’s semantics.

The World Auchenorrhyncha Database comprises nomenclatural information for all known taxa in this suborder of Hemipteran insects (leafhoppers, planthoppers, treehoppers, cicadas, and spittle bugs). Of more than 110,000 included scientific names, 8,921 represent unique genus–group names (valid genera and subgenera as well as their synonyms). An attempt is being made to resolve the etymology of those names to clarify nomenclatural issues in this group of insects.

The category of genus is one of the most intricate and contentious grammatical categories, permeating the entire language system. This underscores the significance of its study not only within one's native language but also in the context of learning it as a foreign language. Simultaneously, conducting typological comparisons aids in the construction of an effective pedagogical framework. In situations of linguistic proximity, such as when studying Russian as a foreign language within the Slovak-speaking audience, it becomes crucial to discern the differences amidst the substantial overlap of classifications and forms of expressing the genus category. These differences necessitate specific attention during students' acquisition of genus paradigms and pragmatics, in addition to recognizing the distinct characteristics of genus asymmetry within languages. Key words: genus category, common nouns, feminitives, Russian, Slovak, intercultural communication Acknowledgments: The article is published with the support of the international grant project Erasmus+ KA220-HED № 2021-1-SK01-KA220-HED-000022917 “The innovation of the concept and curriculum of doctoral study programs and increasing their effectiveness”.

Four new species of the eutheiine genus Veraphis Casey are described, all based on specimens collected in Japan: V. loebli sp. n., V. mutsuensis sp. n., V. aomoriensis sp. n., and V. sakaii sp. n. New findings increase the number of Japanese Veraphis species to fourteen, and Japan becomes a country that houses the greatest known diversity of this rarely collected genus. The grammatical gender of Veraphis is identified as feminine, and species names previously treated as masculine are corrected accordingly. The distribution of all Veraphis species in Japan is summarized.

A morphological study of the Western Palaearctic genus Leptocharis Reitter revealed remarkable differences between L. microphthalmus Meybohm and all remaining congeners. This species is the only Eurasian member of Stenichnini with the mesocoxae not separated by the mesoventral process. A new genus, Turkocharis gen. n., is proposed to accommodate L. microphthalmus. Morphological details of both Leptocharis and Turkocharis are illustrated and discussed, and the Nearctic genus Neladius Casey is indicated as morphologically most similar to the presumably closely related Leptocharis and Turkocharis. As the genus name Leptocharis is of a feminine grammatical gender, specific adjectives previously with masculine endings are corrected to Leptocharis algerica Besuchet, L. cretica (Pic), and Turkocharis microphthalma (Meybohm) comb. n. An updated key for identification of the Eurasian and New Guinean genera of Stenichnini is given.

A new species of the snake genus Opisthotropis Günther, 1872, Opisthotropis cucae sp. nov., is described from Kon Tum Plateau in central Vietnam. It is distinguished from any other Opisthotropis species by the combination of the following characters: (1) dorsal scales entirely smooth, in 23–19–19 rows; (2) 191 ventrals; (3) 1 loreal, in contact with internasal; (4) 7 supralabials, 5 th entering orbit; (4) dorsum uniformly greyish-brown without bands or crossbars, with an irregular separation between dark dorsum and venter, greyish-yellow speckled with dark grey. An extended comparison with other species of the genus Opisthotropis species is provided together with a key to the known species of the genus. Opisthotropis cucae sp. nov. is the third new mountain stream snake described from Vietnam in the past decade. The grammatical gender of the genus Opisthotropis is discussed; this genus is feminine.

Nouns referring to persons are “vehicles of our thoughts” (Hermanns 2012b: 62). As labels, they refer to social categories, thereby both reflecting social realities and preserving them at the same time. If social realities change, language usage changes as well. With the abandonment of a historical concept, the designation associated with it also loses its rich semantic filling. The semantic filling, however, can be reconstructed from a historical perspective using a context-sensitive text and discourse analysis. This article aims to reconstruct Backfisch – the designation and social category for teenage girls in the second half of the 19th century – with surprising findings: German designations for teenage girls display a habitual mismatch between grammatical gender and sex. While this incongruency is common, it is not accidental. Instead, it continuously transports semantic features, both in the neuter, with the reification of adolescent girls that conform to their female gender role, and in the masculine, with male category-bound features of Backfische, whose behaviour conflicts with the expectancies that a female gender role evokes. Masculine gender is thus a manifestation of behaviour deviant from a gender role but nevertheless positively evaluated. A possible reason for this are the category-bound male features – assessed positively – that are transferred to the female Backfisch category and that have the effect of a temporary status enhancement.

The present study investigates the gender systems of 20 languages in the New Guinea region, an often overlooked area in typological research. The languages were classified with five criteria used by Di Garbo (2014) to classify gender systems of African languages. The results showed that the gender systems were diverse, although around half of the languages have two-gendered sex-based systems with semantic assignment, more than four gender-indexing targets, and no gender marking on nouns. The gender systems of New Guinea are remarkably representative of the world, although formal assignment is much less common. However, the gender systems of New Guinea and Africa are very different. The most significant difference isthe prevalence of non-sex-based gender systems and gender marking on nouns in Africa, whereas the opposite is true in New Guinea. However, gender in Africa is also less diverse largely due to the numerous Bantu languages. Finally, four typologically rare characteristics were found in the sample: (1) size and shape as important criteria of gender assignment, with large/long being masculine and small/short feminine, (2) the presence of two separate nominal classification systems, (3) no gender distinctions in pronouns, and (4) verbs as the most common indexing target.
Denna studie undersöker genussystemen hos 20 språk i Nya Guinea-regionen, vilken ofta förbises i typologisk forskning. Språken klassificerades utifrån fem kriterier som användes av Di Garbo (2014) för att klassificera genussystem i Afrika. Resultaten visade att genussystemen var varierade, men ungefär hälften av språken har könsbaserade genussystem med tvaå genus, semantisk genustilldelning, fler än fyra genusindex och ingen genusmarkering på substantiv. Genussystemen är anmärkningsvärt representativa för världen, men formell genustilldelning är mycket mindre vanlig. Jämfört med genussystemen i Afrika är dock Nya Guinea väldigt annorlunda. Den viktigaste skillnaden är den större utbredningen av icke-könsbaserade genussystem och genusmarkering på substantiv i Afrika, medan motsatsen gäller i Nya Guinea. Genus i Afrika är dock till stor del mindre varierat på grund av de talrika bantuspråken. Slutligen hittades fyra typologiskt sällsynta karaktärsdrag i urvalet: (1) storlek och form som viktiga kriterier för genustilldelning, där stort/långt är maskulint och litet/kort feminint, (2) närvaron av två separata nominalklassificeringssystem, (3) inga genusdistinktioner i pronomen och (4) verb som det vanligaste genusindexet.

In the mountainous area of the Greater Hindukush in northern Pakistan, north-western Afghanistan and Kashmir, some fifty languages from six different genera are spoken. The languages are at the same time innovative and archaic, and are of great interest for areal-typological research. This study investigates grammatical gender in a 12-language sample in the area from an areal-typological perspective. The results show some intriguing features, including unexpected loss of gender, languages that have developed a gender system based on the semantic category of animacy, and languages where this animacy distinction is present parallel to the inherited gender system based on a masculine/feminine distinction found in many Indo-Aryan languages.
I den här studien undersöks grammatiskt genus i ett antal språk som talas i ett bergsområde beläget i norra Pakistan, nordvästra Afghanistan och Kashmir. I området, här kallat Greater Hindukush, talas omkring 50 olika språk från sex olika språkfamiljer. Det stora antalet språk tillsammans med den otillgängliga terrängen har gjort att språken är arkaiska i vissa hänseenden och innovativa i andra, vilket gör det till ett intressant område för arealtypologisk forskning. Resultaten av den här undersökningen visar att en del språk i urvalet helt har tappat sitt grammatiska genus trots att det anses vara ett relativt stabilt språkdrag. Några språk har utvecklat ett nytt grammatiskt genus baserat på en animacitetsdistinktion, antingen som det enda kvarvarande systemet, eller parallellt med ett nedärvt indoariskt genussystem baserat på biologiskt kön.
Language contact and relatedness in the Hindukush region (421-2014-631)

Diese Dissertation untersucht Transfereffekte aus der Muttersprache (L1) in der Verarbeitung von grammatischem Genus in der Zweitsprache (L2) bei Spätbilingualen. „Spätbilinguale“ lernen eine Zweitsprache nach der Kindheit, im Gegensatz zu „Frühbilingualen“. Forschungsergebnisse zeigten, dass der L2-Erwerb nach der Kindheit weniger erfolgreich ist als während der Kindheit und dass einige Strukturen, wie z.B. grammatisches Genus, besonders stark von Alterseffekten beeinträchtigt sind. Eine Erklärung für L2-Verarbeitungsschwierigkeiten ist negativer L1-Transfer. Deshalb konzentriert sich diese Dissertation auf L1-Transfereffekte in der Genusverarbeitung. Transfer tritt auf, weil alle Sprachen eines Sprechers aktiviert sind und im Wettbewerb um Selektion stehen. Ein Ziel dieser Dissertation ist, zu beschreiben, welche Faktoren Genustransfer beeinflussen. Für die L2-Genusverarbeitung wurde gezeigt, dass verschiedene Faktoren die Leistung beeinflussen, z.B. die L2-Kompetenz der Probanden, Aufgabenanforderungen und die syntaktische Distanz der übereinstimmenden Elemente. Genustransfer wird durch Faktoren wie Charakteristiken des L1-Genussystems, Transparenz des L2-Genussystems und Formähnlichkeit der Nomen in L1 und L2 beeinflusst. Außerdem könnte Genustransfer von der L2-Kompetenz und der Komplexität des L2-Genussystems abhängen. Es wurden ein behaviorales und ein EKP-Experiment durchgeführt. Genustransfer wurde über verschiedene Sprachpaare mit Genussystemen von unterschiedlicher Komplexität und Transparenz hinweg untersucht. Die experimentellen Aufgaben unterschieden sich bezüglich der Aufgabenanforderungen und syntaktische Strukturen mit unterschiedlicher struktureller Distanz wurden verwendet. Der Leistungsstand der Probanden wurde manipuliert. Anhand meiner Ergebnisse konnte ich identifizieren, welche (Kombination von) Faktoren Genustransfer erhöhen oder verringern und Genustransfer als das Ergebnis eines komplexen Wechselspiels von Faktoren beschreiben.
This thesis investigates first language (L1) transfer effects in second language (L2) grammatical gender processing of late bilinguals. “Late bilinguals” learn an L2 after childhood, in contrast to “early bilinguals”. Research has shown that L2 acquisition after childhood is usually less successful than during childhood and that some aspects of a language are more affected by age than others. One of the structures especially affected is grammatical gender. A possible explanation for L2 processing difficulties in late bilinguals is negative transfer from the L1. Therefore, this thesis focuses on L1 transfer effects in L2 gender processing of late bilinguals. Transfer arises because all languages of a speaker are activated and compete for selection. One aim of this thesis is to describe which (combination of) factors influence L1 gender transfer. Regarding L2 gender processing in general, different factors have been shown to affect performance, e.g., language proficiency of the subjects, task demands, and syntactic distance of the agreeing elements. Gender transfer is affected by factors such as characteristics of the L1 gender system, transparency of the L2 gender system, and form similarities of nouns in L1 and L2 (cognates vs. noncognates). Besides this, gender transfer might be mediated by L2 proficiency and the complexity of the L2 gender system. In this thesis, a behavioral and an ERP experiment were conducted. Gender transfer was investigated across different language pairs with gender systems of varying complexity and transparency. Experimental tasks differed in task demands and syntactic structures with varying agreement distances were used. Language proficiency of subjects was also manipulated. Based on my findings, I was able to identify which factors and which combination of factors increase or decrease gender transfer and to describe gender transfer as the result of a complex interplay of a combination of various factors.

This study investigates, theoretically and empirically, the role of animacy in the development of gender systems. The theoretical background is a grammaticalisation approach to language change. Concerning gender, this presupposes that classifications begin as semantic distinctions in the realm of animacy with flexible, contextually based agreement between the gender-marking elements. This kind of gender is called contextual gender. In the course of time, these classifications will spread into other areas, they become desemanticized and the agreement relation grammaticalizes into one of government where the inherent gender of the head noun controls the gender of the agreeing elements, irrespective of contextual factors When this leads to a great number of violations of the principles of contextual agreement in the realm of animacy, a new cycle of semantic classification will begin, creating layers of classifications. For German and Swedish two different layers are discerned respectively. The empirical starting point of this project was the observation of two opposite developments in the area of female person reference in Germany and Sweden. As a consequence of feminist critique of language, mainly targeted at the use of socalled masculine generics, in Germany the use of female gender-specific nouns increased substantially, the major means being female derivation with –in, so-called motion. Although similar means for female derivation exist in Swedish, i.e. -inna and -ska, the number of derivations used is decreasing. In order to isolate socio-cultural and historical facts from language-internal mechanisms behind the diverging tendencies, a historical sketch of the development of equal rights, of language criticism and of the development of the female suffixes is drawn for the respective countries. It is obvious, that the German strategy to achieve gender-fair language use is established by making women visible by means of motion, while in Sweden the use of gender-neutral forms for a long period of time has been regarded as a sign of equality. This ‘neutral’ use of former masculine and male-specific forms has been made possible by the merging of the two nominal genders masculine and feminine into uter (Sw. utrum). A contrastive study of comparable German and Swedish newspaper texts shows that the lack of motion in Swedish is partly compensated by composition and attribution with gender-specific lexemes. Still, the 64% gender-specific noun phrases in Swedish cannot compare with the 95% in German. But the use of gender-specific forms for well over half of the person references calls into doubt the general opinion shared by most Swedes that Swedish has a gender-neutral person reference system. Linguistic asymmetry persists as long as gender-specification is restricted to one half of the gendered population, whatever the means for specification. The almost exclusive use of gender-specific forms in German is seen as indicative of a grammaticalisation process. Haspelmaths invisible hand explanation of grammaticalisation is used to show how the development of -in in German fulfils just about every requirement on a grammaticalisation process – language-external as well as -internal – while -inna and -ska neither are promoted sufficiently by the speech community nor does there exist a paradigm that could accommodate them. In contrast to Swedish, where the suffixes remain strictly derivational, it is demonstrated that -in is turning into an inflectional marker. The German gender sub-system for person reference is developing into a semantically based system with genderflexible person denominations. A study of the pronouns agreeing with non-personal-agents in a parallel corpus of EU-documents shows that other aspects than purely referential or formal ones impinge on the choice of agreement forms. Non-personal-agents in certain contexts expose both agency and intentionality, which turns them into suitable agreement partners for animate pronouns. In Swedish, all animate pronouns are sexed, leaving a “Leerstelle” for these inanimate but agentive and intentional referents. In German, this problem is covered by the polysemy of the personal pronouns. Non-personal-agents are shown to be one possiblesource for the spreading of a linguistic innovation from the realm of animacy into inanimate contexts via semantic and thematic roles that share important features with animates proper. The last study makes use of different types of German monolingual corpora in order to investigate the agreement between inanimate nouns with female inherent gender – from non-personal-agents and abstracts to concrete nouns – and agent nouns which can potentially expose agreement by female derivation. Although the results are rather heterogeneous, they allow the formulation of the hypothesis that agreement is more likely to occur with nouns for which a metaphorical bridge to stereotypical conceptions of femininity can be constructed and that key collocations with high frequency such as die Kirche als Trägerin or die DNA als Trägerin der Erbinformation contribute significantly to the spread of the agreement pattern.

När en infödd talare av spanska med hög behärskningsnivå i svenska samtalar med en annan individ med liknande språkbakgrund är det inte sällan fraser som ”¿me pasarías la blåbärssylt?” (”kan du skicka blåbärssylten, tack?”) uppstår. Lexikaliskt inskott (eng. noun insertion), d.v.s. att skjuta in substantiv från andraspråket i för övrigt förstaspråksdominerat tal, är ett vanligt förekommande fenomen hos tvåspråkiga. Men vad händer när de två samspelande språken har asymmetriska genussystem som spanskans och svenskans? Vilket spanskt grammatiskt genus ska man då tillskriva de inskjutna svenska enheterna som ”blåbärssylt” i rubriken? Och vad är det som styr dessa val? Två hypoteser ställs upp för att försöka få svar på dessa frågor: genusvalet styrs i större utsträckning av det inskjutna substantivets ändelsemorfem, eller så styrs det i större utsträckning av dess översättningsmotsvarighet. För att testa dessa två hypoteser genomfördes ett experiment med 30 infödda spansktalare med svenska som andraspråk där de ombads attribuera ett spanskt grammatiskt genus, maskulinum eller femininum, till en del svenska substantiv i två olika uppgifter, en lucktext och en ordlista. Resultaten visade att både de olika stimuliordens ändelsemorfem och översättningsmotsvarighet spelade en signifikativ roll för val av grammatiskt genus, och att översättningsmotsvarighet hade en relativt större påverkan på genusvalet jämfört med ändelsemorfem. Detta kan eventuellt peka på att genus hos infödda spansktalare upplevs som en inherent egenskap hos själva referenten, med påtagliga konsekvenser för hur de ser på och tänker kring omvärlden.

Inspirée par divers débats clivants récents sur la féminisation des noms de métiers et defonctions (Rada Języka Polskiego : 2019, Krysiak : 2016, 2020), cette thèse vise à examiner les marqueurs du féminin existants en français et en polonais contemporains, en mettant un accent particulier sur la nomenclature professionnelle féminisée française et polonaise. L’objectif primordial de cette thèse était d’identifier, de nommer et de décrire les marqueurs du féminin à partir des textes règlementaires et mémétiques français et polonais. Notre corpus est constitué, d’une part, de textes règlementaires universitaires français et polonais, et d’autre part, de mèmes Internet dont le composant textuel s’appuie sur diverses subordonnées circonstancielles de temps, introduites par la conjonction « quand »/kiedy. Nous avons analysé 36 mèmes français, 44 mèmes polonais ainsi que 38 règlements universitaires français et 36 règlements universitaires polonais. Ces corpus sont consultables dans le deuxième volume de ce travail. Notre étude nous a permis de constater la régularité d’utilisation de ces différents marqueurs du féminin. Nous y avons analysé divers marqueurs du féminin : linguistiques (y compris explicites et implicites) et iconiques. Nous avons aussi examiné la manière dont les femmes sont représentées à travers les mèmes Internet (le marqueur iconique du féminin). Les investigations menées nous ont permis d’observer les marqueurs du féminin sous divers angles et à travers des genres textuels différenciés. Cette combinaison des textes étudiés n’est pas fortuite et présente un intérêt particulier – celui d’analyser les marqueurs du féminin des référents humains, tant sémantiquement neutres (noms de métiers et de fonctions issus des textes règlementaires), que familiers, argotiques, voire péjoratifs (ressortant des mèmes Internet). En outre, l’étude de ces marqueurs est combinée avec une description des facteurs extralinguistiques influençant la perception du féminin et des femmes en général. Cette thèse se compose de six parties. Dans les deux premières parties théoriques, nous expliquons et comparons la catégorie du genre ainsi que les classifications nominales existantes en français et en polonais contemporains. Ensuite, dans la troisième partie, nous passons à la confrontation des marqueurs du genre. Cette partie comprend également la description de diverses stratégies d’écriture inclusive et quelques obstacles empêchant l’usage systématique du féminin en français et en polonais. Nous y définissons et illustrons deux notions cruciales pour notre problématique : l’asymétrie linguistique des genres et l’invisibilité linguistique des femmes. La quatrième partie met l’accent sur diverses positions concernant la féminisation des noms de métiers et de fonctions. Tout d’abord, nous évoquons les positions récentes émises par l’Académie française et Rada Języka Polskiego. Ensuite, nous comparons les points de vue adoptés par divers linguistes français et polonais. La féminisation est également perçue comme un sujet sociopolitique, générant diverses discussions en France et en Pologne. Enfin, nous comparons les positions exprimées par des internautes francophones et polonophones sur ce sujet. Dans la partie analytique, nous décrivons d’abord les différents marqueurs du féminin des référents humains français et polonais émergeant des textes formels (règlements universitaires) (la partie V), en nous focalisant sur diverses stratégies d’écriture inclusive, dont la féminisation des noms de métiers fait partie. Dans la sixième partie, nous abordons les textes non formels, à savoir les mèmes Internet, en mettant en valeur leurs définitions, leur genèse, leurs composants, leurs caractéristiques et les concepts cruciaux pour leur analyse. Dans la même partie, nous comparons aussi les marqueurs explicites et implicites ressortant des mèmes Internet français et polonais. Cette thèse se termine par une synthèse des résultats des recherches menées
The impulse for writing this doctoral dissertation was the increasing number ofdiscussions eagerly undertaken with respect to the feminisation of job titles, ranks, degrees, and functions (Council for the Polish Language: 2019, Krysiak: 2016, 2020). The subject of the paper is a comparison of the feminine markers in personal designators in contemporary French and Polish, with a particular focus on the feminisation of job titles and functions. The main aim of this dissertation is to identify, describe and compare French and Polish linguistic feminine markers in personal designators. The analyses were conducted using university regulations and internet memes. The textual component of memes was based on various temporal subordinate clauses introduced by the conjunctions 'quand/when'. A total of 36 examples of French memes, 44 Polish ones, 38 French university regulations and 36 Polish ones were analysed. (The texts were collected in the second volume of the dissertation, where they can be reviewed). The analysis focused on both linguistic (explicit and implicit) feminine markers and iconic ones (characteristic of memes), as well as its frequency. The research material made it possible to examine the feminine markers from different perspectives. The analysis of the feminine markers was then combined with a description of the social context, taking into account extralinguistic factors influencing the perception of the feminine genus and women in general. It should be emphasised that the combination of memes with the texts of regulations is not coincidental – it enables a more comprehensive analysis of feminine markers in personal designators (women), both semantically neutral ones, such as names of professions, functions, ranks, and titles (from the regulations), as well as colloquial, informal, and even pejorative or offensive ones (from internet memes).The work consists of six parts. In the first two theoretical parts, the aim was to explainand compare the genus categories and nominal classifications found in contemporary French and Polish. Next, we compared Polish and French linguistic feminine markers with an emphasis on nouns denoting professions and functions. The section also contains a description of the various strategies of inclusive language, making visible women, as well as the obstacles that exist today preventing the systematic use of feminativum. In the third part, we defined two important concepts – gender asymmetry and the linguistic invisibility of women, along with French and Polish examples. The aim of the fourth part is to analyse the opinions relating to the progressive feminisation of job titles and functions. First, the positions towards linguistic feminisation issued by the Académie française and the Council of the Polish Language were discussed. A comparison was then made between the positions taken by other established French and Polish linguists. In the next chapter, the linguistic feminisation appeared as a political phenomenon widely discussed in France and Poland. The final part on the social reception of feminatives includes a comparison of the positions taken by French-speaking and Polish-speaking internet users. In the analysis section, formal texts such as university regulations were first compared. This genre was defined and the feminine markers in personal designators were then subjected to comparative analysis, with a particular focus on job titles and functions and on the various strategies of inclusive language. The next part examines informal texts, i.e. internet memes. It begins with a definition of the internet meme, its origin, and components. The next chapter contains the set of crucial concepts for the analysis of Internet memes. This part concludes with a comparison of the linguistic feminine markers (explicit, implicit and iconic) observed in selected French and Polish examples about women. This work ends with a summary of the overall findings of the conducted research

El objetivo del presente estudio es investigar el uso preferido del género gramatical y en particular el genérico masculino. Muchos son los estudios realizados sobre el genérico masculino en otras lenguas, pero pocos los que se han centrado en describir el uso en el español. Es por ello que pretendemos profundizar el entendimiento de este campo mediante un análisis del género gramatical usado para denominar profesiones y cargos en bolsas de trabajo en la página web española, y además cómo el profesorado sueco lo aplica cuando refieren a alumnos oralmente o por escrito y cómo prefieren que otros hagan referencia a su propia profesión. El corpus consta de títulos de 265 anuncios de cuatro profesiones de cuatro sitios web españoles y 69 respuestas de un cuestionario compartido en un grupo para profesores de español en Facebook. Es un estudio del tipo cuantitativo y se analiza el resultado según el uso del género gramatical. Partimos de la hipótesis de que hay una gran variedad de uso; en gran parte arbitraria, pero también que se organiza el uso según los estereotipos. Los hallazgos principales son que en el 69 % de los anuncios de trabajo el uso más frecuente no es el genérico masculino sino la inclusión de las dos formas gramaticales, hecha de varias maneras y en el uso entre los profesores el genérico masculino es el más usado, no obstante, hay una multitud de preferencias y para resumir constatamos que hay una gran variedad en el uso en los contextos investigados.

The Book of Ruth contains one of the Bible's best-known and most-loved stories. This major commentary by Robert L. Hubbard Jr. shows how the author of Ruth used, with great literary artistry, the story of Ruth and Naomi to convey important theological themes. In his introduction Hubbard discusses the issues of text, canonicity, literary criticism, authorship, date, purpose, setting, genre, legal background, themes, and theology, concluding with an outline of the book and a thorough bibliography. The commentary proper is based on Hubbard's own fresh translation and accented by copious footnotes on textual, philological, and literary matters. Gleaning the best from recent research on Ruth, Hubbard gives the story's rich literary, grammatical, and theological dimensions a careful, rigorous treatment. He allows for the possibility that the anonymous author was a woman and argues that the narrative itself aims to counter opposition to the Davidic monarchy in Israel and Judah during Solomon's reign. Throughout, Hubbard's sensitivity to the literary genius of Ruth's author and his coherent explication of the outworking of the book's theological themes make this volume an invaluable tool for anyone desiring to explore the intriguing story of Ruth in depth.

This chapter explores how language helps human beings to group, distinguish, and differentiate between things in the world around them. In other words, what is the basis of conceptual thought, and how does this relate to language capacity as a whole? On the one hand, behaviourists have argued that human beings start life as a ‘blank slate’, and our language capacity is something that we learn by exposure to the language of others. On the other, Noam Chomsky proposed that humans are born with an innate capacity for language, as shown by the ease with which children rapidly learn a wide vocabulary, but also by their remarkable capacity for linking words together in complex grammatical structures. The chapter then looks at developments in the search for a biological basis for human language. Studies suggest that language in humans involves a complex interplay between a number of different genes, FOXP2 being a key one, which affect the connections between neurons in specific parts of the brain. However, it still remains unclear whether FOXP2 gene affects neurons involved in language processing per se or those that control muscles involved in speech.