Personal Dual Gender of English and Arabic Nouns in Selected Sonnets of Shakespeare and Poems of Al-Mutanabbi

Abstract

Personal dual gender may grammatically be defined as a category that includes nouns which can be either masculine or feminine. Moreover, it is a class of nouns, which has 'who-he or she' pronouns co-reference. This paper is an attempt to settle the confusions which surround the term 'dual gender' in English and Arabic. In addition, this work tries to show, each aside, the nouns which have the personal dual gender in the two languages. Then, the similarities and differences among the target nouns of the two languages are highlighted.

            As will be seen, this paper falls into seven sections: first- The introduction of the study, second- Gender in English, third- Personal dual gender in English, fourth- Gender in Arabic, fifth- Personal dual gender in Arabic, sixth- Analyses of selected sonnets by Shakespeare and poems by Al-Mutanabbi: a- Shakespeare's Sonnets, b- Al-Mutanabbi's poems, and seventh- Conclusions.