epicene

Epicenity is the lack of gender distinction, often reducing the emphasis on the masculine to allow the feminine. It includes androgyny – having both masculine and feminine characteristics. The adjective ''gender-neutral'' may describe epicenity (and both terms are associated with the terms ''gender-neutral language'', ''gender-neutral pronoun'', '' gender-blind'', and ''unisex'').

Specialized uses

In linguistics, an ''epicene'' word has the same form for male and for female referents. In some cases, the term ''common gender'' is also used, but should not be confused with ''common'' or ''appellative'' as a contrary to ''proper'' (as in proper noun).
In English, for example, the epicene (or common) nouns ''cousin'' and ''violinist'' can refer to a man or a woman, and so can the epicene (or common) pronoun ''one''. The noun ''stewardess'' and the third-person singular pronouns ''he'' and ''she'' on the other hand are not epicene (or common).''Dictionary.com'': "epicene"
(accessed on 10 August 2015)

In languages with grammatical gender, the term ''epicene'' can be used in two distinct situations:

*The same word can refer to either masculine or feminine signified concept, while retaining its own, either masculine or feminine, grammatical gender. For example, Classical Greek () 'hare' is masculine, but can refer to male and female hares (he-hares and she-hares), and () 'fox' is feminine, but can refer to male and female foxes (he-foxes and she-foxes).Goodwin, William W. : ''A Greek Grammar'', revised and enlarged ed. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1895, p. 35, § 158 For this meaning, the term ''common gender'' is different from ''epicene gender''.
*An article, noun, adjective, or pronoun has identical masculine and feminine forms, but they don't follow always one agreement pattern.

In French

In the French language, the noun 'schoolchild' and the adjective 'mischievous' can be either masculine or feminine, but they are differentiated by the article:

The same can happen in French with the epicene elided singular articles (), the definite () and undefinite () plural articles, and the contractions ( + ) and () when in contact with the noun, so the adjective takes the task of marking the gender:

For these meanings the term ''common'' is also used.

However, there can be cases where the agreement cannot force the disambiguation, even with the presence of pronoun, article, noun and adjective when they are all epicene:

This can be further complicated when dealing with spoken French (when some orthographical nuances are lost).

In Spanish

In the Spanish language, there are very few cases where a noun ignores the semantic gender of the referent. For example, the noun 'person' is grammatically feminine, and only takes any supporting article or adjective in agreement with this gender.

As the gender of the referent of an epicene is ambiguous it may be necessary to add an adjective to clarify, but the gender of this adjective will also be in agreement with the epicene, for example in the case of the noun 'victim' which is also an epicene.

See also

* Gender marking in job titles
* Gender neutrality in English
* Generic antecedent
* Male as norm
* Unisex name

References

{{reflist

Androgyny
Effeminacy
Gender-neutral language
Grammatical gender