On Gender Marking in the English Language

The paper is concerned with a diachronic study of gender marking in the English language. The study aims to trace the evolution of markers differentiating the grammatical category of gender. It is revealed that the decay of gender in the English language resulted from that of case inflections which used to be the distinct gender markers of Old English noun and adjective paradigms. The paper also examines linguistic and extralinguistic causes of the development of third-person pronouns which are referred to as the main gender markers in Modern English. Gender aspect of pronominal reference is viewed form a sociocultural perspective associated with attempts to eliminate sexism in language. In this regard, it is shown to what extent this tendency has influenced the meaning, forms and functioning of English pronouns.

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