Sex and Gender in Serbian and Bulgarian

Abstract

It's a comparative study, focused on a grammatical category Gender in the Indo-European languages. All European languages show sexist structures. Today European gender languages have problems with the designations of professions. Gender is present in most European languages, but sex and gender do not always coincide. Today the European languages have to deal with the phenomen that professions previously reserved for men are now open to women. Further, suffixes are often polysemous. The most used feminizing suffix in the Slavonic languages, -k(a), has other functions, as a diminutive and for producing nomina instrumenti. In Russian, Polish, Bulgarian and Italian feminine/female counterparts of terms denoting prestigious occupations are avoided. Fem agentives are available and are normally employed for traditional female occupations. Fem forms are employed for women in the high-status occupations today in German and Croatian and to a lesser extent in Serbian.