TRADITIONAL AND NEW WAYS TO DESIGNATE THE FEMALE SEX BY THE RUSSIAN TRANSIENT-TO-GENERAL-GENDER NOUNS

The article analyzes the rules of the use of masculine nouns denoting women in speech, as well as the nature of compliance or violation of these rules in modern Russian. It is observed that, according to grammatical tradition, predicate verbs can agree with these words semantically (are used in the feminine gender), and adjectives and other attributes — grammatically (are used in the masculine gender). It was revealed that the first of the named norms in modern Russian is observed, while the second often admits violations and options. Among the possible reasons for the spread of semantic coordination in the language are the loosening of the grammatical norm and the dominance of the pragmatic function in the use of the language.