Gender

Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics

by Greville G. Corbett

Gender is a fascinating category, central and pervasive in some languages and totally absent in others. In this new, overall account of gender systems, over 200 languages are discussed, from English and Russian to Archi and Chichewa. More detailed analysis of individual languages provides clear illustrations of specific types of systems. Gender distinction is often based on sex; sometimes this is only one criterion and the gender of nouns depends on other factors (thus "house" is masculine in Russian, feminine in French and neuter in Tamil). On occasion there are equivalent distinctions such as human/non-human, animate/inanimate, where sex is irrelevant.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Gender, Language

384 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 1991

Reviews

[Yael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very complete, it consolidates information from many sources in a structured manner.

[Kathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even I didn't know all the languages presented in this book, it helped me a lot to get into the topic of gender. Everybody who write a piece about gender HAS to read this book. Everything important is explained in there.

[Bria]

Well now I understand all the different crazy ways gender systems can work in languages, but still only have a glimmer of a guess as to WHY.