Cover; Half-title; Series-title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1 Defining English gender; 2 The gender shift in histories of English; 3 A history of gender, people, and pronouns: the story of generic he; 4 Third-person pronouns in the gender shift: why is that ship a she?; 5 Gender and asymmetrical word histories: when boys could be girls; 6 Implications for nonsexist language reform; Appendix 1: Background on early English personal pronouns; Appendix 2: Helsinki Corpus texts and methodology; References; Index
Summary
How did grammatical gender in English get replaced by a system dependent on natural gender? How is this related to 'irregular agreement' (she for ships) and 'sexist' language use (generic he) in Modern English? This study, based on extensive corpus data, offers an important historical perspective on these controversial questions
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 204-217) and index
