Género, sexo y formación de femeninos

Abstract

This work studies semantic gender from a functional perspective, avoiding extensional representations. The existence of vertical relationships (genus-species or hyperonymy) and horizontal (cohiponymy) is defended. It is concluded that sequences like hombre are the expression of two meanings: hombre1 and hombre2: hombre1 (‘rational animal’, opposed to god, angel…) is synonymous of person, ‘human being’ and is the base of derivatives such as humanity and humanism. In the other hand, hombre2 (‘rational animal male’) is heteronymous opposed to woman and synonymous of varón; hombre2 is the base of derivatives like hombría, hombrón…). Different classes of noums as epicenes, commons, heteronyms and ortonyms are analysed using schemes that reflect their possibilities. The collective values of couple of signs as padres, reyes… are studied separately. Finally, the process of creating new feminine noums from ortonyms is explained.