Russian Nominal Semantics and Morphology

5. The Noun: Gender

CHAPTER 5 The Noun: Gender 5.0. Gender in Agreement and Inflection Like animacy, gender is lexically encoded. As an inherent feature of the noun stem, it is responsible for a classification of nouns into three groups: masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. Not surprisingly, there are many points of similarity in the ways animacy and gender are formally reflected. As in the case of animacy, a consistent reflection of gender should be looked for in agreement patterns, i.e., outside the noun itself (Corbett 1991: 7). Since Russian nominals, including not only nouns but also adjectives , pronouns, etc., basically have only one plural declension, they are not capable of reflecting the gender distinction in the plural (for a few exceptions, see below). For this reason gender has traditionallymore or less directly- been described as restricted to the singular. This view is not in harmony with the claim that gender is an inherent feature of the noun stem, and it is in fact wrong that gender is restricted to the singular. As in the case of animacy, a full reflection of the category , independent of number and other grammatical values, is found in agreement relations connecting the noun phrase to the broader context. We shall first examine certain aspects of the declension of nouns on the one hand and of adjectives and pronouns on the other in order to determine how gender is signalled by individual desinences. This will provide the foundation for considering gender reflection in anaphors, relative pronouns, attributes, and the noun itself. Tables 1-6 present the relation of noun desinences to gender. Note that the desinences are presented as specified for number and case. This is reasonable since number and case are generally signalled in inflection and thus unambiguously identified in discourse (with a few exceptions that do not invalidate the general point). Note that the last 102 RUSSIAN N OMINAL SEMANTICS AN D M ORPHOLOGY Table 1. Noun Desinences Unambiguously Identifying One Particular Gender Number/case Desinence Gender SG.NOM/ACC -0 (stem final: hard C) MASC SG.NOM/ACC -0 NEUT SG.INST -Ju FEM SG.GEN -u MASC (INAN) SG.LOC -u MASC (INAN) SG.LOC -1 FEM (INAN) PL.NOM '-e MASC (AN) Table 2. Noun Desinences Linked with Two Genders (Excluding Only One Gender) Number/case Desinence Genders SG.NOM/ACC -0 (stem final: soft C) MASC, FEM SG.NOM -a MASC, FEM SG.ACC -u MASC,FEM SG.INST -oj(u) MASC, FEM SG.GEN -a MASC, NEUT SG.DAT -u MASC, NEUT SG.INST -om MASC, NEUT PL.NOM/ACC -a MASC, NEUT four desinences in Table 1 are the ones that also identify an animacy value, d. Table 3 in section 4.0. They have a restricted function, both because they convey a more specific case meaning than the given case in general and because they are limited to specific noun groups. This leaves the first three desinences as the on!y ones identifying one particular gender without further semantic specification. The remaining desinences, including all plural desinences with the exception of the two included in Tables 1 and 2, do not contribute to the formal identification of gender, d. Table 3. Thus, gender is only partly reflected in the inflection of the noun. A full reflection of gender is only characteristic of a few desinences, THE NOUN: GENDER 103 some of them, however, syntactically central and very frequent. Most of the remaining singular desinences offer a partial specification of gender, while most plural desinences are not linked with gender at all. Table 3. Noun Desinences Unspecified for Gender Number/case Desinence SG.GEN -1 SGDAT -1 SG.LOC -1 SG.LOC '-e PL.NOM/ACC -1 PL.GEN/ACC -ov - -ej PL.GEN/ACC -0 PL.DAT -am PLINST -am'i PL.LOC -ax Adjectives and pronouns exhibit the same three degrees of gender specification, but with a more transparent distribution. Here plural desinences are totally unspecified in relation to gender, while singular desinences are linked with either one or two genders. This appears from an overview of standard adjective desinences in the singular, d. Tables 4-6. Finally, as mentioned above, adjective plural desinences are not specified for gender, d . Table 6. Possessive adjectives and pronouns agreeing with nouns exhibit roughly the same pattern of gender specification and will not be considered. The general picture is the same as in the case of the other...