From: hermes@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Ron Szoke)
Subject: feminine as default (summary)
Keywords: feminine generic default
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 20:10:54 GMT



Here is a summary of the information I got on languages with the feminine
as  the default or generic cases and their culture's sexism.  Some of these 
I got from a similar query I posted on the LINGUIST listserv.

I tried to post this earlier this week, but there was problems with my 
usual sign on, hence I'm using this one. 
Thanks again for all your responses.


Ed Kovach - kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu

______________________________________________________-

I was just informed today that Cayuga, an Iroquoian language, uses the
feminine gender pronoun as the unmarked form, in both singular and
plural cases (i.e., a mixed group of both men and women is referred to
by the female plural pronoun.)

This information is [from a]  MA Thesis on the
phonology of Cayuga [written at the U of Toronto by Carrie Dyck 
cdyck@epas.utoronto.ca]
--------------------------------------------

Not a direct answer to your query, but the French word `personne' is
of feminine gender, although of universal gender referent. e.g.

	La premiere personne que vous avez mentionnee est arrivee.
	Elle attend a la porte.  (could be a man or a woman)

	`Il attend a la porte' is also possible (though less elegant)
	once the sex of the person becomes known.
--------------------------------------------------

Feminine is the unmarked gender in Arawan languages of Northwestern
Amazonas, Brazil. Alan Vogel, UT Arlington has an MA thesis on gender
in Jarawa. I have a ms. here at Pitt on gender in Deni and Steve
Marlett (SIL Tucson) has some info on Madija.

As to any connection with cultural attitudes, gender relations, I have
no observations to relate.

Dan Everett [university of Pittsburgh]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edward Kovach asks if there are any languages with feminine as the
unmarked gender.

Greville Corbett's book *Gender* (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991), which
I recommend strongly, cites (at least) one language where feminine
is claimed to be the unmarked case.  The language is Zayse, an Omotic
language (spoken in Ethiopia, I presume.)

The original reference is Hayward, R.J. 1989. The notion of `default
gender': a key to interpreting the evolution of certain verb para-
digms in East Ometo, and its implications for Omotic. Afrika und
U"bersee 72:17-32.

I don't know anything about what the culture of these people might be
like, but I wouldn't bet on matriarchy...


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not what Edward Kovach had in mind, alas, but a piece of linguistic
Ripley-style "did you know that..".

I have it from my late colleague Donald Laycock (Australian
National University) that, in a few languages of Papua-New-Guinea
(unfortunately I cannot remember any names) there are both
masculine and feminine 3rd person pronouns. Nothing strange so
far. Now, should a group of persons be all men, except for one,
count her: one, lone woman, you use the *feminine* 3rd pl. pronoun.
Don's interpretation was: "It's not what you think. In fact, they
are as macho a lot as you could ever find. The presence of just one
women (and, a fortiori, several) in a group of men is so extraordinary
that it warrants using the feminine pronoun."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greenberg cites Oneida (Iroquoian) as a language with unmarked
feminine gender.  But the facts are more complex.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: tpc1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Price Caldwell)
(location ? Mississour State?)


There are unmarked feminines even in English.  Witness cow vs. bull,
duck vs. drake.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: (Edward G. Kovach)  <kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu>

> 1.  Are there any languages with the femimine gender as the unmarked or
>  generic case, and the masculine as the marked?

Although the view is not very widespread, there are advantages to viewing
the feminine form of French adjectives as the basic form, and to deriving
the masculine from the feminine (most of the time by merely deleting the
final consonant). I'm talking in terms of pronunciation, obviously, not
in terms of spelling.

E.g. heureuse /OrOz/ - heureux /OrO/
          /O/ is my attempt at transcribing the vowel -eu-
     longue /lo~g/ - long /lo~/
     grande /gra~d/ - grand /gra~/

There are other derivations, such as desonorisation:

E.g. bre`ve /brEv/ - bref /brEf/

or slight vowel change + final C deletion:

E.g. premie`re /pr@mjEr/ - premier /pr@mje/

Although this overview is by no means exhaustive, one will soon discover
that in the long run it is easier to describe the masculine forms in the
spoken language starting from the feminine than it would be to go the
other way round.

Cf. long /lo~/ - longue /lo~g/
    rond /ro~/ - ronde /ro~d/
    bon /bo~/ - bonne /bon/

> 2.  If such languages exist, how "sexist" do the speakers appear to be?

As speakers remain mostly unaware of the alternative approach sketched
above, this question does not arise (just yet) - at least not in this
respect.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1.  Are there any languages with the femimine gender as the unmarked or
> generic case, and the masculine as the marked?

Uhh, how about French?  Adjectives, that is...

Synchronically, the difference between most of the masculine and
feminine adjective forms is that the feminine form has an additional
*unpredictable* consonant at the end. So -- _petit_ /pti/ small (masc
sg) and _petite_ /ptit/ small (fem sg).  Given this, it seems far more
economical to hypothesize that the feminine form is the base case,
with a rule of final consonant deletion to derive the masculine form
-- rather than assuming the masculine form as basic, and somehow
adding an unpredictable consonant suffix in the feminine.

Despite this, the French don't seem either more or less noticably
sexist than anyone else.  Possibly that's because, diachronically, the
immediately preceeding forms for the adjectives was one where the
masculine form was basic, and the feminine was derived from it by a
schwa suffix. Given a final consonant deletion followed by a final
schwa deletion, and we get the synchronic system.

Having a somewhat pessimistic view of sociolinguistic relations, I
expect that most cases where the feminine form is unmarked will be the
result of the blind operation of sound change laws to a previously
(predictably) masculinist system.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some languages of Papua New Guinea have feminine as the unmarked gender. E.g.
plural and feminine are isomorphic, so that when speaking of or to a group
consisting of men and women, the 'feminine' form is used. There may be other
respects in which feminine is unmarked. I believe the societies in question
are just as sexist as most others. 
   Phil Fields is an SIL fieldworker who can provide more detailed information,
specifically on Orya, a Papuan language of Irian Jaya. His current address is
501 So. Lincoln, Hillsboro, KS, 67063, USA. His phone # is 316 947-3087. I
recently reviewed a paper of his in which this fact is described.
Good luck.
-------------------------------------------------
I saw an article by Donka Farkas within the last couple of years on
gender agreement in Romanian. If memory serves, the feminine is the
default gender in some contexts. I don't remember the details or where
the article was published, but Farkas is at the U. of Calif., Santa
Cruz. Her e-mail address is farkas@ling.ucsc.edu .

---------------------------------------------

In Esperanto, "father" = 'patro' while "mother" = 'patrino'.
That is, "patro" with the feminizing suffix "-ino."

Personally, I have a violently negative reaction to that
formation and believe it's a fault that ought to be fixed.
Since Esperanto is an artificial language (is that the
right term?), prescriptivism may have its place in it.
How does the list feel about that?

On the other hand, the Russian "djadja" [j = yod] ('uncle')
has a feminine declension and takes masculine agreements.
I don't imagine the Russians have any problem with that,
but it would be interesting to hear from Russianists on
the subject.

-----------------------------------------------

There is an article by Barry Alpher on "Feminine as the unmarked gender"
in Australian Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 7/2 (1987), pp.169-187
(special reference to Australian languages) and, in the same volume,
an article by Ephraim Bani on "Masculine and feminine grammatical
gender in Kalaw Lagaw Ya" (apparently feminine is unmarked here;
unfortunately I didn't have a closer look at either of the articles
so far).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There are unmarked feminines even in English.  Witness cow vs. bull,
> duck vs. drake.

Examples such as cow/bull and duck/drake are no good wrt the topic under
discussion. Although the first member of each pair is surely an unmarked
feminine, both members cannot be considered as case forms of one single
word.

> Subject: languages with the feminine as the unmarked case
>
> Despite this, the French don't seem either more or less noticably
> sexist than anyone else.  Possibly that's because, diachronically, the
> immediately preceeding forms for the adjectives was one where the
> masculine form was basic, and the feminine was derived from it by a
> schwa suffix. Given a final consonant deletion followed by a final
> schwa deletion, and we get the synchronic system.

I beg to disagree. Native speakers do not know about the way things worked
centuries ago, unless they took a course in historical grammar. My bet is
that the rule taught in French schools is the rule for the written language
where indeed the masculine form is basic - just add (prototypically) -e
to it and you've got the feminine.  The rule for the spoken language is
simply not taught, and therefore the French are not aware of the alternative
way in which adjectival gender agreement can be approached. THAT explains
why in this area they are not noticeably more sexist than anyone else.
---------------------------------------------------------------------


In reaction to Kovach's question "are there any languages with the
feminine as the unmarked case ..?": In Iraqw (S.Cushitic, Tanzania), the
feminine object pronoun is used for unspecific objects and for clauses.
In this respect the feminine gender is unmarked, or one may say that it
refrs to the word for "thing" which happens to be feminine. The feminine
object pronoun is _a_, the masculine one is _u_, which can be analysed
as _au_ plus vowel coallescence and the feminine object pronoun would be
really unmarked. In other parts of the morphological system feminine is equally
marked as masculine. In the personal (pro)noun system masculine is the unmarked
in a way. There is gender distinction for the second person singular, but
the second person plural (pro)noun has no gender distinction and is based
on the second person singular masculine. (There is no gender distinction in
the third person (pro)nouns.

__________________________________________

>  Subject: Gender marking
>
>  In Esperanto, "father" = 'patro' while "mother" = 'patrino'.
>  That is, "patro" with the feminizing suffix "-ino."
>
>  Personally, I have a violently negative reaction to that
>  formation and believe it's a fault that ought to be fixed.

Yes, I dislike this one too, as well as "viro : virino" `man : woman':
I find it unnatural to think of `mother' as `female father' (which
completely misses the natural counterposition `bearer' : `begetter')
or of `woman' as `female man' (where "man" is not used in its generic
sense, which it has in English; rather, it means `male human').  I
know that there are some Esperantists who use "matro".

>  Since Esperanto is an artificial language (is that the
>  right term?), prescriptivism may have its place in it.

Unfortunately, I feel it may be too late for this: the word "patrino"
has been around for too long.

Disclaimer: I am not an Esperantist.

>  On the other hand, the Russian "djadja" [j = yod] ('uncle')
>  has a feminine declension and takes masculine agreements.

The term "feminine declension" is to be taken with a grain of salt,
because there is only a statistic correlation, not a causal link,
between a noun being feminine and following what is regularly called
"first declension" (and is chock full of masculine nouns).

>  I don't imagine the Russians have any problem with that,

They don't.

In Bulgarian this correlation is much closer than in Russian, there
being much fewer masculine nouns with singular ending _-a_.  It is
reported that in some dialects feminine agreement occurs with such nouns:

_rimskata papa_  [Roman-sgf_the-sgf pope]
   cf. standard _rimskijat papa_  [Roman-m_the-m pope]
_vladikata doshla_  [bishop_the come_perf-sgf]
   cf. standard _vladikata doshyl_  [bishop_the come_perf-sgm]

but apparently not with _bashta_ `father', which has a higher frequency.
(I don't think all this can be called a problem, anyway.)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>What languages use the feminine as the unmarked or generic case?

In Swedish, the word for 'human being' (maenniska) traditionally
takes a female pronoun.  "The human - she."

Apart from that, male is still the default (though we have a lot
more gender-neutral pronouns than English, and don't have to go
through all the contortions that English-speaking PC people do
to write "neutral" prose.)

------------------------------------------------

In Hebrew the ordinal numbers are feminine.  As for the culture the 
writer of the note is not sexist.  (Note, I lost this note, so I'm 
summarizing from memory.  I lacked sufficient knowledge of Hebrew names
to identify the writer's gender. EGK)
-----------------------


>>kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Edward Kovach) writes:
>>> What languages use the feminine as the unmarked or generic case?
>>> How sexist do the speakers of these languages appear to be?
>>> Please reply directly to me, I may miss posted replies.  Thanks in advance!

>Swedish comes close to this, because the Swedish word "maenniska" (sp?),
>meaning "human being", is feminine. So an English statement such
>as "A man [meaning a human being] does what he likes to do" in
>Swedish becomes "A human being does what she likes to do".

Swedish doesn't come anywhere close to this, unless there are a huge number
of other words like "maenniska". The existence of that particular word
(in French you have "personne", in Italian "persona" etc) does not prove
that Swedish uses the feminine as an unmarked or generic form.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
|> 
|> >kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu (Edward Kovach) writes:
|> >> What languages use the feminine as the unmarked or generic case?
|> >> How sexist do the speakers of these languages appear to be?
|> >> Please reply directly to me, I may miss posted replies.  Thanks in advance!
|> 
|> Swedish comes close to this, because the Swedish word "maenniska" (sp?),
|> meaning "human being", is feminine. So an English statement such
|> as "A man [meaning a human being] does what he likes to do" in
|> Swedish becomes "A human being does what she likes to do".
|> 

In French the same thing happens:  if you start out talking about "a person"
("une personne") you must continue with the feminine.  On the other hand, you
can usually say "someone" ("quelqu'un") instead, and that's masculine.
------------------------------------------------

Actually, I doubt if there will be much. (info on feminine  default languages)

As far as I know, only Indoeuropean languages have a three-way, gender-based
noun classification system.  Most other noun classification systems involve
more categories, and often treat gender as a very minor factor (if at all).
[though the classification system may still be just as arbitrary as in I.E.].
------------------------------------------------------------

This is all I have as of 4/6/92.  Thanks again for all your responses!!

Ed Kovach - Kovach@austin.cogsci.uiuc.edu