Saturday, June 9, 2018

Noun Femimine Forms

English has a small clutch of nouns with feminime derivational suffixes. All but one of these feminizing suffixes (-ster) are foreign origin. They have been added to a masculine form or to a base morpheme. Here list of most of them, with example of the feminime nouns to which they have been attached and the corresponding masculine forms. Masculine
Fiancé
Comedian
Patron
Henry
Farmer
Masseur
George
Hero
Spinner
Seamster
Aviator

Feminime
Fiancé
Comidence
Patroness
Henrietta
Farmerette
Masseuse
Georgina
Heroine
Spinster
Seamsters
Aviatrix

These suffixes vary in vitality from –ess, the most productive , to –stress, which is completely dead. Two of them –enne and –euse, occur only in words borrowed from frens. The –e also from French is merely orthographic and is not heard in the spoken word. The –ster is no longer a feminizing suffix but now indicates any person, usually male:ganster, oldster, prankster.
English also has about fifty pairs of words with separate forms for the masculine and the feminime example : bull, cow, uncle, aunt, gander, goose. But these are a matter of lexicography than morphology and we shall pass them by.

No comments:

Post a Comment