Percolation of gender in French: The case of enciente

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Published: Oct 26, 2018
Keywords:
French, gender, enciente, semantics, sociolinguistics

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Jason F. Siegel

Abstract

In resources as varied as an introductory textbook on French phonology and morphology, dictionaries, language planning articles, and computational linguistics talks, it is frequently mentioned that the word enceinte (pregnant) is rare among adjectives for having gender specified in the lexicon. I argue that this specification is unnecessary. First, there is no morphological evidence showing how enceinte behaves differently from any other invariable adjective in French. For many speakers, the incongruity of a sentence like Le capitaine Prieur est enceinte (Captain Prieur is pregnant) would therefore be principally a semantic or sociolinguistic issue. Conversely, many speakers do object to the above sentence, saying that the use of the feminine is improper, which would suggest that the adjective has no underlying gender for these speakers. By ruling out the notion that enceinte is an exceptional adjective, we can avoid unnecessary complications of the French gender system.

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Issue
Vol. 8 No. 3 (2008): Gender in Language: Classic Questions, New Contexts
Section
Articles

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