MORPHOLOGICAL PATTERNS OF SELECTED FEMININE GENDER WORDS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Abstract
This paper examines morphological patterns of selected feminine gender words in the English language with the view to identify the morphological processes involved in the formation of feminine gender nouns in English, examine the role of derivational suffixation (such as -ess, -ine, -a, -ina, -trix) in marking feminine gender, analyze alternative processes of forming feminine gender without the suffix -ess, including suppletion, compounding, and syntactic marking. The study was anchored on gender neutrality theory. The population for this study comprises English words that denote female referents or are marked as feminine in contemporary English. The study found that derivational suffixation has historically been a central strategy in the formation of feminine gender nouns. Suffixes such as -ess, -ine, -a, -ina, and -trix were widely used to derive feminine counterparts from masculine based nouns. hero → heroine and executor → executrix illustrate how bound morphemes attach to a lexical root to encode the semantic feature [+female]. The paper also confirms that suppletion plays a significant role in feminine formation. Word pairs such as those formed through completely different lexical roots demonstrate that gender distinction in English is often lexical rather than morphologically predictable. Such forms must be learned individually, emphasizing the irregular nature of gender marking in the language.
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Published in RHEMA UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
ISSN: 979-37999
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