网范文：“The hypothesis and Case study” 性别分化是下一步在创造世界的分类模型,进而获取现实的第一步，被分类为两个领域，言语行为参与者。它可以进一步推测,在这段时间过程中,性别不明的特定识别问题，间接证据存在于这一事实,然后,它扩展到其他对象,扩展基于类比和功能关联。
对于案例探讨，英语论文题目，英语论文范文，在俄罗斯，性别特征的动物的名字似乎为这一假设提供支持数据。从表中看到,动物常见的地理区域，下面的范文进行详述。
The hypothesis
If we assume that pronouns have ontogenetic primacy over nouns (Кравченко 1996), then it can be hypothesized that gender differentiation of pronouns was the next step in creating the taxonomic model of the world, the first step being categorization of all phenomenologically accessible reality into two realms: speech act participants (in a canonical utterance situation, the speaker and the addressee) and the rest of the world. This, basically, made the epistemic contrast “I - you” the ultimate point of reference in natural language, all possible referents being subsumed by the concept “it” (= “the matter of speech”) as anything that is not immediately embraced by the first concept. It can be further hypothesized, that in the course of time non-gender specific identification of the matter of speech (оно ‘it’) gave way to the contrast он - оно (‘he - it’) on the “animate/inanimate” feature.
Circumstantial evidence for this is found in the fact that, typically, nouns denoting animate creatures (names of species) that can be considered as prototypes for respective classes, are masculine: волк ‘wolf’, заяц ‘hare’, медведь ‘bear’, орел ‘eagle’, голубь ‘pigeon’, воробей ‘sparrow’, карп ‘carp’, окунь ‘bass’, etc. The animalistic past of language also helps explain why many inanimate nouns, especially names of elements and natural phenomena such as ветер ‘wind’, гром ‘thunder’, дождь ‘rain’, град ‘hail’, снег ‘snow’, иней ‘frost’, мороз ‘severe cold’, огонь ‘fire’, воздух ‘air’ are masculine: the attributing of the feature “animate” to an object depended on whether that object belonged to the self-propelled or non selfpropelled class (Premack 1990). At first, it seems, the contrast он она ‘he - she’ reflected natural gender distinctions of humans.
Then, it was extended to other animate objects and, finally, to any obviously inanimate objects, the extension being based on analogy and functional association. The analogy principle can be traced in gender characteristics of some nouns that are names of natural objects, when the prototypical features that distinguish man from woman can be attributed to those objects, cf.: дуб ‘oak, m’ — “big, strong, sturdy” vs. рябина ‘mountain ash, f’ — “slim, thin, yielding”, огонь ‘fire, m’ — “powerful, dangerous” vs. вода ‘water, f’ — “soft, caressing, soothing”, земля ‘earth, f’ — “mother of everything living”, etc. A. Kravchenko, The cognitive roots of gender in Russian 6 The functional association principle in noun gender classification may be found in groups of names of certain artifacts: нож ‘knife, m’, топор ‘ax, m’ — implements used by man as provider and protector, ложка ‘spoon, f’, плошка ‘bowl, f’, чашка ‘cup, f’ — implements used by woman as a hearth keeper; лук ‘bow, m’ vs. стрела ‘arrow, f’ — dependence relationship (hierarchical subordination); корень ‘root, m’, ствол ‘trunk, m’ vs. крона ‘tree-top’, ветвь ‘branch, f’ — one as the foundation and support for the other. Numerous examples of this kind make it possible to hypothesize that the category of gender in Russian reflects the workings of a certain system of classifiers that are cognitive in nature and structured around a secondary epistemic contrast он/а - оно (“he/she — it”), i. e. the grammatical category of noun gender is a reflection of the basic world taxonomy as represented by the system of personal pronouns.
Case study
A case study of gender characteristics of names of animals in Russian seems to provide supportive data to this hypothesis. As is seen from the table, animals common in the geographic area historically populated by Eastern Slavs can be divided into three main groups: 1) animals dangerous for man, 2) animals useful for man (with two subgroups — (a) source of food, (b) source of warm hide/fur), 3) other animals (of no particular practical interest). Nouns that are names of species (in a scientific classification) belong, as a rule, to the masculine class. In the predator group, however, two names (which are names of species) belong to the feminine class (рысь ‘lynx’, лиса [лисица] ‘fox’). Although the noun рысь does not have an opposite gender correlate, the nouns лиса, лисица are derived from the masculine noun лис. In the scientific classification, it is the feminine noun лисица that is used as a name of species. It is derived from the masculine noun on the same pattern as the feminine nouns медведица ‘female bear’, волчица ‘female wolf’, whereas the meaning ‘female fox’ is represented by the form лиса, which is also used as the name of species in the naive classification. How can such inconsistency be accounted for?
As the table shows, gender differences among names of predators (Group 1) reflect consistent differences among their referents on the first and second classifying features: the bear and the wolf are relatively big in size and are reputed (at least, in folklore) man-eaters, while the fox and the lynx are of noticeably smaller size (and, respectively, of lesser strength), so they do not stalk humans. It is worthy of note that this differentiation on the feature “danger” is analogous to that between man and woman in the primeval society where the main social functions enjoyed by men were the providing of food and the waging of war (both involved the killing of living creatures). Species names for edible animals (Group 2a) are, for the most part, also masculine. Exceptions are коза ‘goat, f’, лань ‘fallow deer, f’, косуля ‘roe, f’ which are all feminine. Козел ‘goat, m’ is a species name in the scientific classification, although it is derived from коза ‘goat, f’ (which, like the noun лиса ‘fox, f’ is a species name in the naive classification). This may be due to unification of the semantic paradigm of species names.
That species names лань, косуля (alongside with коза as a species name in the naive classification) belong to the feminine class may, at least partially, be explained by the fact that they denote animals considerably smaller in size than their cousins — the red deer, the elk, and the moose (compare with a similar distinction in the predator group). The fact that there are derived feminine nouns in Group 2a may be due to the fact that it is possible to visually distinguish males and females of the species: the tusks of a boar, the antlers of a stag or moose, and the horns of a goat are of noticeably bigger size with males, rather than females. As for the noun зайчиха ‘female hare’, it can be put down to the productive word formation pattern “masc. noun stem / fem. suffix”. In Group 2b (fur animals) most of the species names are also masculine (11 out of 17, or two thirds).
The noun норка ‘mink, f’ is the result of metonymic transfer from the fem. noun нора ‘burrow’, so its gender characteristic does not relate to a naive system of classifiers. The species name куница ‘marten, f’ descends from Old-Rus. куна ‘marten pelt worth 1 dirham’ (cf. the pair лиса - лисица ‘fox, f’) which suggests that there might have existed in Old-Rus. the masculine noun *кун. The feminine gender of выдра ‘otter’ and выхухоль ‘desman’ relate to the tripartite world classification common to many so-called “primitive” languages: water (fish), air (birds), earth (mammals) (Levi-Strauss 1962). If we assume that this taxonomic principle was effective in Russian, then the feminine gender of выдра and выхухоль would be accounted for by the fact that the animals belongs to the domain “water” (i. e. the fish class, and “fish” in Russian is feminine). In case of выдра ‘otter, f’ we have clearcut etymological evidence as its root is traced to the Indo-European stem *udra ‘water’. It is worthy of note that little children who have not yet acquired the scientific classification of the world, use the words рыба ‘fish, f’, рыбка ‘fish, diminutive, f’ to refer to different aquatic creatures such as tadpoles, small crustaceans, etc.
The feminine gender of росомаха ‘wolverine’, белка ‘squirrel’ seems to be unmotivated, but only because language in its modern state does not allow us to trace the original classification principle and the rationale behind it. However, Черных (1994) suggests, that modern Russian росомаха is the transformed Old-Russian masculine noun росомах ‘evil spirit’. As for белка, according to the same source it is the result of substantivization of the adjective бела ‘white, f’ which in Old-Russian was part of the name бела веверица ‘white squirrel, f’.
In its turn, веверица is a derived suffixal feminine noun of the same morphological class as лисица ‘fox, f’. Thus it appears that in Group 2b 14 names out of 17 (~ 85%) are, originally, masculine. None of the nouns in Group 2b have opposite gender correlates (i. e. they are not registered in dictionaries), although in common speech feminine nouns are easily derived by adding suffixes to the masculine noun stems, e. g. соболиха ‘female sable’, сурчиха ‘female marmot’, барсучиха ‘female badger’, бобриха ‘female beaver’, бурундучиха ‘female chipmunk’, кротиха ‘female mole’. At the same time, feminine nouns do not yield masculine correlates as might be expected, and the following forms are not allowed: *выдр ‘male otter’, *кун ‘male marten’, *росомах ‘male wolverine’, *белк ‘male squirrel’, *норк ‘male mink’.
Conclusion
Although necessarily sketchy, the suggested analysis of mechanisms at work in the case of Russian nominal gender classification indicates that traditional accounts of gender as a grammatical category fail to grasp the essence of its meaning, while a cognitive approach may provide deeper insights into the relationship between grammar and man’s cognitive activity, making explanation of grammatical facts comprehensible rather than confusing. The proposed approach to an analysis of a specific grammatical category as a means for categorizing experience may be productive in analyses of other grammatical categories, bringing to light cognitive processes and categorization principles ignored or neglected by traditional semantic analysis.
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