Mikko Laitinen Pronominal Realisation of Gender-Neutral Antecedents
in Written Early Modern and Present-Day English

University of Helsinki
P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40B)
FIN-00980 University of Helsinki
FINLAND
mikko.laitinen@helsinki.fi

Abstract

Epicene pronouns in English, or roughly the personal pronouns in sentences (a-b) below, in indefinite anaphora have attracted comments from various fields of research in the past few decades (e.g. McConnell-Ginet 1979; Baron 1986; Bodine 1990; Baranovski 2002). The studies have approached epicenes and indefinite anaphora from various angles, but the common denominator has often been the social aspect in pronominal realisation. In addition to this, both linguistic and extra-linguistic factors of the epicene question have been studied (e.g. Newman 1997; Svartvik & Lindquist 1997; Laitinen 2002).

a) Ö and who could bear to live with one _____ despised?
b) A doctor who does _____ job well will earn a lot of money.

This paper, building on the previous work, approaches the study of perception and realisation of genderless and indefinite anaphora from another perspective. Instead of investigating normative practices, it will be suggested that an alternative approach to indefinite anaphora might be found in the interface between diachronical corpus linguistics and grammatical analysis of the antecedents. This is to suggest that in addition to gender perceptions, there might be other factors affecting the selection of personal pronouns. To support the approach, corpora will be used to evince the relationship between the antecedents and personal pronouns as a realisation of genderless and non-specific entities. It will be argued that in indefinite anaphora our views of linguistic gender and extralinguistic sex can be supplemented with knowledge of diachronic processes, such as grammaticalisation and language-level analysis.

References:

Baranowski, Maciej. 2002. "Current Usage of the Epicene Pronoun in Written English". Journal of Sociolinguistics 6/3.378-397.
Baron, Dennis E. 1986. Grammar and Gender. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bodine, Ann. 1990. "Androcentrism in Prescriptive Grammar: Singular 'They', Sex-Indefinite 'He' and 'He or She' ". The Feminist Critique of Language. A Reader ed. by Deborah Cameron, 166-186. London & New York: Routledge.
Laitinen, Mikko. 2002b. "Singular HE and Plural THEY in Indefinite Anaphora in Written Present-day English". International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. Vol. 7.2.137-164.
McConnell-Ginet, Sally. 1979. "Prototypes, Pronouns and Persons." Ethnolinguistics: Boas, Sapir and Whorf Revisited, ed. by Madeleine Mathiot, 63-83. The Hague: Mouton Publishers.
Newman, Michael. 1997. Epicene Pronouns. The Linguistics of a Prescriptive Problem. New York & London: Garland.
Svartvik, Jan & Hans Lindquist. 1997. "One and Body Language". From �lfric to the New York Times. Studies in English Corpus Linguistics ed. by Udo Fries, Viviane M¸ller & Peter Schneider, 11-20. Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi.

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