Editing Grammatical gender (section)

==== Germanic: English ====
{{Main|Gender in English}}
Although grammatical gender was a fully productive inflectional category in [[Old English]], Modern English has a much less pervasive gender system, primarily based on natural gender and reflected essentially in pronouns only.

There are a few traces of gender marking in Modern English:
* Some words take different [[Morphological derivation|derived]] forms depending on the natural gender of the referent, such as ''waiter/waitress'' and ''widow/widower''.
* The third-person singular [[English personal pronouns|personal pronouns]] (and their possessive forms) are gender specific: ''he/him/his'' (masculine gender, used for men, boys, and male animals), ''she/her(s)'' (feminine gender, for women, girls, and female animals), the [[singular they|singular]] ''they/them/their(s)'' (common gender, used for people or animals of unknown, irrelevant, or non-binary gender), and ''it/its'' (neuter gender, mainly for objects, abstractions and animals). (There are also distinct personal and non-personal forms but no differentiation by natural gender in the case of certain interrogative and [[English relative clauses|relative pronouns]]: ''who/whom'' for persons, corresponding to ''he'', ''she'', and the singular ''they''; and ''which'' corresponding to ''it''.)

However, these are relatively insignificant features compared with a typical language with full grammatical gender. English nouns are not generally considered to belong to gender classes in the way that French, German or Russian nouns are. There is no gender agreement in English between nouns and their modifiers ([[article (grammar)|article]]s, other [[determiner]]s, or [[adjective]]s, with the occasional exception such as ''blond/blonde'', a spelling convention borrowed from French). Gender agreement applies in effect only to pronouns, with the choice of pronoun determined through semantics and/or pragmatics rather than on any conventional assignment of particular nouns to particular genders.

Only a relatively small number of English nouns have distinct male and female forms; many of them are [[loanword]]s from non-[[Germanic language]]s (the suffixes ''-rix'' and ''-ress'' in words such as ''aviatrix'' and ''waitress'', for instance, derive directly or indirectly from Latin). English has no live [[productivity (linguistics)|productive]] gender [[marker (linguistics)|marker]]s.{{citation needed|date=July 2021}} An example of such a marker might be the suffix ''-ette'' (of French provenance), but this is seldom used today, surviving mostly in either historical contexts or with disparaging or humorous intent.

The gender of an English pronoun typically coincides with the natural gender of its referent, rather than with the grammatical gender of its [[antecedent (grammar)|antecedent]]. The choice between ''she'', ''he'', ''they'', and ''it'' comes down to whether the pronoun is intended to designate a woman, a man, or someone or something else. There are certain exceptions, however:
* With animals, ''it'' is usually used, but when the sex of the animal is known, it may be referred to as ''he'' or ''she'', particularly when expressing an emotional connection with the animal, as with a [[Pet animal|pet]]. {{crossreference|(See also human vs. non-human [[#Gender contrasts on human versus sentient referents|above]].)|printworthy=y}}
* Certain non-human things can be referred to with the pronoun ''she'' (''her'', ''hers''), particularly countries and ships, and sometimes other vehicles or machines. This [[figure of speech]] is referred to as [[Gender in English#Metaphorical gender|metaphorical gender]]. It is in decline, and advised against by many style guides.<ref>''[[The Chicago Manual of Style]]'', 15th edition, 2003, p. 356. {{ISBN|0-226-10403-6}}.</ref>

Problems arise when selecting a personal pronoun to refer to someone of unspecified or unknown gender {{crossreference|(see [[#Contextual determination of gender|above]])|printworthy=y}}. In the past and to some degree still in the present, the masculine has been used as the "default" gender in English. The use of the plural pronoun ''they'' with singular reference is common in practice. The neuter ''it'' may be used for a baby but not normally for an older child or adult. Other genderless pronouns exist, such as the impersonal pronoun ''one'', but they are not generally substitutable for a personal pronoun.{{crossreference|&nbsp;(For more information, see [[Gender-neutral language]] and [[Singular they|Singular ''they'']].}}