Gender Denotation Methods for Nouns in the Turkish Language

Abstract

The gender of both humans and animals differentiates linguistically in all cultures, but this category may be expressed in different ways and to various degrees. In the Turkish language, neither nouns nor pronouns have a grammatical category of gender. The morphological method of denoting gender is used only for a restricted number of humans, mostly high-ranking, and in some personal names. The lexical method of denoting gender is used for most human and animal names. In this method, together with the lexemes with value having no indication of gender, a lexeme characterized by the semantics dominated by the indication of gender is used. Such gender markers are also used independently and, along with the gender meaning, include a “key meaning” or have a connotation. This group of words includes some kinship terms, names of age groups, and addresses. The lexeme erkek is used for all age groups, humans and animals, thereby being “absolute”. Positive connotations are characteristic of the masculine markers erkek, adam, delikanlı, while bey, bay are neutral. The use of the feminine markers kadın, kız, dişi, bayan is limited by age, biological and social factors. Kadın has a pejorative connotation. Only names of animals that have economic importance are denoted by gender in a suppletive way. The number of such animal names is decreasing due to changes in the main method of production. The gender of other animals is marked lexically with the help of erkek and dişi. The results of this study are important for typological research and help to prevent communication errors.