Introduction

One of the fields of linguistic study that I find most interesting is morphology. I love both puzzles and language, so working through a language to understand its patterns and differences to my native English language is fascinating and enjoyable. For the purpose of this squib, I have decided to focus on the Spanish language with interest in gender within the word, pronoun, and sentence structure. I believe this is important and interesting because English does not denote gender in our language the same as it is in Spanish. With recent gender political issues in the United States, it has led me to question why gender may be so important to neutralize, as it is to Californians, in our language and compare that with other languages whose gender is imbedded within.

 

Spanish Data Set

I have created a data set in Spanish to show where gender can be found within the Spanish language, when and how it is used, and also show the verb and suffix changes that occur between the pronouns. For the purpose of this data set, I have simplified the data and the intent of the analysis will look only at the common verbs between the sentences and the pronouns (if any are present). No prior knowledge of the Spanish language is needed to conduct and analysis on this data set. For the sake of the analysis, the verb stem ‘preguntar’- ‘to ask’ has been provided and is represented in the data set as its conjugated form ‘pregunta’- ‘he/she asks’. This data is restricted to the imperfect present tense.

 

Data set key: (for) = formal, (in) = informal, (f) = feminine, (m) = masculine, (sg) = singular, (pl) = plural

 

1. Yo bailo solo‘I dance alone’

2. Usted bailas‘you (for/sg) dance’

3. Tú bailas solo‘you (in/sg) dance alone’

4. Bailas sola‘you (f/sg) dance alone’

5. Él baila solo‘he dances alone’

6. Ella baila sola‘she dances alone’

7. Nosotros bailamos juntos‘we dance together’

8. Nosotras bailamos juntas‘we (f) dance together’

9. Vosotros bailáis juntos‘you (in/pl) dance together’

10. Vosotras bailáis juntas‘you (f/pl) dance together’

11. Ustedes bailan‘you (for/pl) dance’

12. Ellos bailan‘they dance’

13. Bailan juntos‘they (m) dance together’

14. Ellas bailan‘they (f) dance’

15. Ella pregunta bailar‘she asks to dance’

 

 

Morphological Analysis

To begin analysis on the data set above, the verb stems need to be identified. The verb stem ‘preguntar’ has been provided already. What is the other verb stem present in this data set? (This can be found in line 15).

              Verb stems:

• Preguntar- ‘to ask’

• Bailar- ‘to dance’

Once the stems are identified, we can see how the verbs are conjugated and see that the stem changes- depending on the person number it is identifying or representing- are , and understand whether or not the verbs are bound or free morphemes. According to the data set above, the verb stems are bound. Their morphemes are:

• Pregunt- & -ar (ask & to)

• Bail- & -ar (dance & to)

These morphemes are bound because they cannot exist on their own. Likewise, as seen in the data set, after being conjugated, the morphemes still cannot stand on their own. We can see this in the words “bailas”- ‘you dance’ and “bailan”- ‘they dance’ demonstrated in the data set. Interestingly, we also can see from these two verbs found in lines 4 and 13 of the data set, that they represent the person/ number without the presence of a pronoun, which is considered a free morpheme. This is also represented in the verb stem conjugation. This change occurs in the suffix by replacing the bound morpheme ‘ar’- ‘to’, with the appropriate person number ending. In the case of lines 4 and 13, the final morphemes are:

• ​

• ​

However, they alone do not display the gender that is present within the sentences. In Spanish, to understand if the sentence is masculine or feminine, one to two aspects will reveal the gender.

• The in the sentence will tell us if its masculine, feminine, or neutral.

• Or the can also describe whether its masculine, feminine, or neutral.

Its easiest to analyze this data by making a chart to see where the gender occurs in pronouns.

 

Spanish Pronoun

English Translation

Person Number

Verb Ending Change

Yo

I

1st (sg)

‘o’

Tú

You (sg)

2nd (in/sg)

‘as’

Usted

You (sg)

2nd (for/sg)

‘as’

Él

He

3rd (sg)

‘a’

Ella

She

3rd (f/sg)

‘a’

Nosotros

We

1st (pl)

‘amos’

Nosotras

We

1st (f/pl)

‘amos’

Vosotros

You (pl)

2nd (in/pl)

‘áis’

Vosotras

You (pl)

2nd (f/in/pl)

‘áis’

Ellos

They

3rd (m/pl)

‘an’

Ellas

They

3rd (f/pl)

‘an’

Ustedes

They

3rd (for/pl)

‘an’

 

By laying out and identifying these aspects, we can see how the gender may operate based on pronouns, as well as, how the person numbers operate and reflect the subjects of the senses used in the data set, and through Spanish gender markers (their corresponding verb ending changes and or pronoun suffix changes). These verb ending changes show us the person number, however more detail is required to identify the gender, which can sometimes be found in the pronouns. Three examples from the data set can show that the ‘él’ pronoun for ‘he’ can represent the masculine gender, or a combination of masculine and feminine genders. Take the lines 12-14 in the data set:

• Line 12: ellos bailan- ‘they dance’

• Line 13: bailan juntos- ‘they (m) dance together’

• Line 14: ellas bailan- ‘they (f) dance’

Line 12 shows ‘ellos’, which we saw was the masculine pronoun for ‘they’ in the chart above, however, in this context, we can consider representing both a male and female party since it is not specified elsewhere in the sentence. Line 13, however, is a little trickier, since we are not given a pronoun, ‘bailan’ can represent either gender, which means it relies on the following adverb, ‘juntos’ to tell us whether or not the sentence is masculine. In this example, the sentence would be masculine because we see in the data set above, suffix changes between ‘o’, ‘os’, and ‘a’, ‘as’, which determine the sentences gender. Since ‘juntos’, can be written as feminine ‘junt-as’, we see that line 13, is masculine as it is written with ‘juntos’. Similarly to line 14, we can see the pronoun ‘ellas’ represents the feminine structure of this sentence. Unlike ‘ellos’, where the sentence structure could be flexibly masculine or include both masculine and feminine genders, ‘ellas’ is strictly feminine. This means, the following words, or in this case adverb, will also need to be feminine. For example, ‘ellas bailan juntos’ is not appropriate or grammatically correct. The adverb’s suffix would need to undergo a gender change to ‘as’. Therefore, ‘ellas bailan juntas’ is a grammatically correct sentence in Spanish translating to ‘the girls (they) dance together.’

 

To make these instances of gender clearer, a chart can be made to identify the gender markers.

A list of gender markers displayed through suffix changes and pronouns:

Gender

Pronoun

Suffix

Masculine (m)

él, ellos, nosotros, vosotros

‘o’/ ‘os’

Feminine (f)

ella, ellas, nosotras, vosotras

‘a’/ ‘as’

Neutral (unless further specified)

usted, ustedes

‘o’/ ‘os’/ ‘a’/ ‘as’

 

Reflections

              Based on the data set above and the analysis of the data set, I can confidently say that gender can be found in the Spanish language through its gender markers (i.e. found within the pronouns and suffixes). Further more, this data set has shown that Spanish has one-to-one matches between the meanings and their morphemes. Some challenges still exist within this data set of the Spanish language that are ambiguous in nature. One example comes from the above discussion of line 13, where the pronoun is not present. In this case, if not identified by myself, the sentence could still represent both gender parties since to describe a group of people in general in Spanish, the masculine representation is used. Though simplified for the purpose of this squib, the gender in Spanish is very complex and may require prior knowledge of the language rules to fully understand how gender is embodied through the language.