Gender Marking in English and Ibibio

Abstract

This Chapter examines gender forms in English and Ibibio (New Benue-Congo). It is a purely descriptive analysis which espouses how the grammatical category of gender occurs in the two languages under discussion. Analysis shows that English and Ibibio indicate gender both morphologically and grammatically. Morphologically, natural gender is marked and unmarked in the languages as masculine, feminine and neuter and, typically encoded on humans and animate objects. Grammatically, gender is indicated on personal pronouns in the two languages. Findings show that personal pronouns in English and Ibibio inflect for case. It reveals that whereas personal pronouns in English are gender–sensitive, those of Ibibio are not. It asserts that second person personal pronoun in English uses only one form (you) for both singular and plural whereas Ibibio shows number distinction by having two forms whereby one form (afo) indicates second person singular and the other (ndufo) indicates plural. The discussion also points out that third person singular pronouns in English distinctively show sex discrimination as she, he and it which corresponds with feminine, masculine and neuter whereas Ibibio uses one word (anye) to mark third person for all sexes. The discussion concludes that Ibibio-English bilinguals are likely to encounter difficulty in the use of third person personal pronouns in English because of sex distinction. It recommends that since gender is a feature of human languages and operates differently in different languages, then it requires close focus, especially in a second language situation like that of Ibibio-English bilinguals.