In the strictly grammatical sense, English is a non-gender language, as it possesses no form of words distinctive of sex. Boy represents a male being, girl a female being; but there is no grammatical form assumed by either word which enables us to say that it is masculine or feminine. In order to arrive at this knowledge we must go beyond the province of grammar rid find the meaning and use of each word. It is customary to say that boy is of the masculine gender because it represents a male being; but this is equivalent to saying that a thing is what it is because it is what it is. It is an admission of the fact that modern Eng lish grammar has no forms of words by which it distinguishes sex; and that, if we wish to distinguish the sex of the being represented by any definite word we must have recourse to our own knowledge of its meaning or, in default of this, to the dictionary. We know that wife is feminine because it represents a female being; but we do nor know this by virtue of its gram matical form. In the Latin languages, on the contrary, the grammatical distinction is prac tically always in evidence. Thus, for example, "es so,' in Spanish is husband and "esposa' is wife. The go" ending denotes the male being and the "a' the female being. Our grammatical knowledge tells us that the one is masculine and the other feminine without the necessity of knowing the meaning of either word. Here grammar is independent of the dictionary. "Criado' is masculine because it has the gram matically masculine termination "o' while "criada' is feminine because it has the gram matically feminine termination "a.' To arrive at this conclusion it is not necessary to know in advance that "criado' is a male servant and "criada' a female servant. The word servant has, in English, no form to express gender; and to convey the idea of gender we have to have recourse to the old English method of prefixing to it words indicative of sex, as for example, man-servant, maid-servant, woman servant, girl-servant. If this method were used consistently throughout, then the English language might properly be said to possess grammatical gender. Our lack of true gram matical gender is shown in our recourse to such expressions as man child, male child, boy pupil, girl pupil, man teacher, male teacher, woman teacher, female teacher. These efforts are the survival of a very ancient method of the language used to express grammatical gender. But they now exist only as curious survivals of the past and as an almost negligible exception to the rule that English is a non gender language.
Old Gender There linger in the English language many old forms reminiscent of its early history and its long transitional period. Some of these indicate grammatical gender in a fragmentary way. Some are reminiscent of the German affinities of the tongue while others are of Latin or Greek origin. Fox takes the feminine vixen; the feminine of wizard is witch, and that of widower is widow. These and a few others are gender forms of Germanic origin; but they only constitute exceptions in the general con sideration of English gender. A number of words form the feminine by the addition of -ess to the masculine. These generally indicate grammatically the feminine gender but not the masculine. In count, countess, for example, the gender of countess is plainly indicated by the form of the word-ending. But this is not so as regards count, the gender of which can be fixed only by first ascertaining the meaning of the word itself. Not only does this list of
words indicate only partially the gender of the words contained therein, but it is in origin not English at all. It is extended to a compara tively small list of words, and even they are barely domesticated in the language. The same is true of the whole list of Latin and Greek gender terminations in English. They are strangers in a foreign land and their influence is negligible because they are so few in numbers, and they have not been able to put off their strange dress. This dispenses with the very few gender forms of nouns which are practi cally all of foreign origin and distinct from those of the older English tongue.
Gender of It is a common as sertion of grammarians that the personal pro nouns in English afford evidence of true gender; but this is far from being the truth if gender is considered as a purely grammatical distinction. It is impossible to tell by the form of the words I, we, you and they whether the person to which they refer is male or female. It is only in the third person that something like true-gender is found in he, she, it, his, hers, its. But the plural forms they, their's are de void of gender terminations or inflections. All the other forms of personal, relative, demonstra tive and possessive pronouns are similarly with out true grammatical forms indicative of gender.
In older English, adjectives and certain verbal forms were declined to indicate gender, but these distinctions have now disappeared so completely that there does not survive a single exception to prove the ancient rule.
To sum up, therefore. True grammatical gender, as a general rule, does not exist in Eng lish. Not a single neuter word has a gram matical termination of English origin in dicative of the fact 'that it represents an inanimate thing. Practically no names of male beings have distinctive grammatical inflections by which it can• be at once recog nized that they represent male beings. The terminations of the few feminine designations that may be said to indicate true gender in English are all of foreign origin, and their use has had practically no influence on the position of gender in the language. There is no gender evident in the p.unattns in English except in the third person. singular of personals and pos sessives, and even these forms have now be come arbitrary, so that the meaning of the pronoun itself, in each case, has to be first de termined before its gender can be ascertained. Adjectives, gerunds and other verbal expres sions have no grammatical forms in English indicative of gender. English, therefore, in the proper grammatical sense of the term, is a gen derless language.
Bibliography.— Abbott, E. A., 'A Shake spearian Grammar' (New York 1909); Alex ander, C. A., 'Grammatical System of the Eng lish Language> (Boston 1794); Ash, John, 'Grammatical Institutes' (Boston 1785) ; Baker, J. T., 'Correct English) (Baltimore 1907) ; Barrett, S., 'Principles of Grammar' (Albany 1848) ; Brown, Goold, 'The Grammar of English Grammars) (New York 1851); Latham, R. G, 'A Handbook of the English Language) (New York 1870) ; Lewis, W. D., 'Practical English for High Schools) (New York 1916) ; Metcalf, R. C., 'English Gram mar) (New York 1894); Murray, Lindley, 'English Grammar>• (1795); Sweet, 'A Primer of Historical English Grammar' (Ox ford 1902); Swinton, W., 'A Grammar Con taining the Etymology and Syntax of the English Languages (.New York 1879), Join." HUBERT CORNYN.
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