Gender Shifts in the History of English (Paperback)


How and why did grammatical gender, found in Old English and in other Germanic languages, gradually disappear from English and get replaced by a system where the gender of nouns and the use of personal pronouns depend on the natural gender of the referent? How is this shift related to 'irregular agreement' (such as she for ships) and 'sexist' language use (such as generic he) in Modern English, and how is the language continuing to evolve in these respects? Anne Curzan's accessibly written and carefully researched study is based on extensive corpus data, and will make a major contribution by providing a historical perspective on these often controversial questions. It will be of interest to researchers and students in history of English, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, language and gender, and medieval studies.

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Product Description

How and why did grammatical gender, found in Old English and in other Germanic languages, gradually disappear from English and get replaced by a system where the gender of nouns and the use of personal pronouns depend on the natural gender of the referent? How is this shift related to 'irregular agreement' (such as she for ships) and 'sexist' language use (such as generic he) in Modern English, and how is the language continuing to evolve in these respects? Anne Curzan's accessibly written and carefully researched study is based on extensive corpus data, and will make a major contribution by providing a historical perspective on these often controversial questions. It will be of interest to researchers and students in history of English, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, language and gender, and medieval studies.

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Product Details

General

Imprint

Cambridge UniversityPress

Country of origin

United Kingdom

Series

Studies in English Language

Release date

July 2009

Availability

Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days

First published

March 2009

Authors

Dimensions

229 x 152 x 14mm (L x W x T)

Format

Paperback - Trade

Pages

236

ISBN-13

978-0-521-11726-5

Barcode

9780521117265

Categories

LSN

0-521-11726-7



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