Genderlinguistik des Sorbischen: Flexionsmorphologische Grundlagen
The Gender Linguistics of Sorbian: Foundations in Inflectional Morphology

Summary/Abstract: Preferences in gender linguistics can include both making clear gender distinctions in speech in relation to individual persons, as well as using gender-neutral descriptions of people. Both aims can only be fulfilled in Sorbian by using complex formal structures, as the inflectional category of gender in Sorbian is based on the obligatory expression of gender differences when referring to people. In particular, the claimed departure in German gender linguistics from the “generic masculine” could only be achieved in Sorbian at the expense of linguistic economy. This applies more to Upper Sorbian than to Lower Sorbian, which has after all given up gender differentiation in plural inflection, also in parts of the dual. It is proposed that any gender linguistic moves in Sorbian should take Slavic languages as their model, e. g. Polish, rather than German.

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