Человек: пол неизвестен, а род мужской, и это не сексизм


2017. № 1, 50-59

И. Г. Милославский, доктор филологических наук, МГУ им. М.В. Ломоносова

Abstract:

The author makes clear the opposition «gender» as a type of grammatical agreement for every noun in Russian and «sex» as a nominative feature of a creature, human
being or animal. The main role in expressing such features as «male», «female» or
«unknown sex» plays suffixation. In Russian there are many suffixes connecting with the meaning, mostly with «female», the reader finds some recommendations for
their usage. In the article is showed how the gender of nouns can have associational
connection with sex only in the texts of poetry and folk-lore. A Russian speaker
will find in the article some useful recommendation for avoiding formal mistakes,
connecting with the gender of nouns and for expressing such semantic features of
a creature as «male», «female» or «unknown sex» in a better way.