Feminine Agentives in European Languages

Abstract

The article deals with the semantics and pragmatics of the names of professions for women in areas where previously only men were represented. Some European languages, such as German, are consistent in their use of feminine agentives, while others, such as Italian, Russian and Bulgarian, tend to avoid the use of feminine agentives, preferring instead to use the traditional masculine nomen professionis. In some cases, it is morphologically difficult to form a feminine agentive, but in others the feminine agentive is available but, for pragmatic reasons, it is not used. Some feminine agentives are ambiguous, since they can be understood to refer to the wife of the man in question. Some feminine agentives are also used as nomina instrumenti or to denote female animals.