Gender concord

Gender concord involves concord for grammatical gender. In English, gender concord is restricted to phoric concord in which third person singular pronouns typically must agree with the gender of the noun (typically a person or thing) which they reference.

Gender concord in English[edit]

For example, we can say:

Example sentence	Notes
"After the man went running, he was very tired."	He is an anaphor for "the man"; they agree since they are both masculine. We wouldn't say *"After the man went running, she was very tired." or "After the man went running, it was very tired."
"After the woman went running, she was very tired."	"She" is an anaphor for "the woman"; they agree since they are both feminine.
"Kelly had a plant. It was beautiful."	"It" is an anaphor for "the plant"; they agree since they are both neuter.

The above references are anaphoric, but they can also be cataphoric, and exophoric.

Unclear pronoun referents.

Gender neutral language[edit]

Gender neutral language is often used, especially in academic English. To do this, we can either use co-ordinated gender pronouns or singular they:

Example sentence	Notes
"If a person wants to succeed in life, he or she must work hard"	co-ordinated gender pronouns
"If a person wants to succeed in life, he/she must work hard"	co-ordinated gender pronouns
"If a person wants to succeed in life, they must work hard"	singular they

It seems logical to keep the whole lexical chain gender neutral, especially in formal registers.

Examples from other languages[edit]

In other languages, gender concord has additional effects. e.g. in German pronouns and articles must agree, and in French pronouns, articles and adjectives must agree.

German[edit]

In another Germanic language, German, singular nouns are marked for gender, as well as case and number:

Gender	Definite article	Indefinite article	Example	Meaning
Masculine	der	ein	der Mann	the man
Feminine	die	eine	die Frau	the woman
Neuter	das	einen	das Auto	the car

This system is broadly similar to that found in Old English, which English has lost.

French[edit]

French grammar is less closely related to English than German grammar. There is no neuter. It shows concord for adjectives as well. Feminine adjectives take a -e suffix:

Gender	Definite article	indefinite article	adjective agreement	Example	Meaning
Masculine	le	un	none	un grand magasin le grand magasin	a big shop the big shop
Feminine	la	une	-e	la grande ville une grande ville	the big town a big town

Loan phrases in English[edit]

The exception to this is loan phrases from French and Latin, which can retain their concord present in their original language when transferred into English.

[examples]