The Masculine and The Feminine in Arabic and the Illusion of the Unnecessary Proliferation of Words

Abstract

This research investigates masculine and feminine in Arabic, aiming at highlighting the formal and semantic limits set by Arab linguists for each of them. Two further issues constitute the aim of this research: the first: the reality of the formal indicators of feminization, and the extent of their conformity with reality, The second is to explain the cause of the existence of these formal signs and to refute the idea of classical linguists that they came to restrict the proliferation of words. This research aims to clarify these elements associated with the idea of femininity in Arabic, and to indicate whether the masculine was originally feminine or not? And spot some formal masculinization as signs of femininity. The research reached a set of results, most notably that the formal signs of the feminine were not strict to the extent adopted by the classical Arab linguists; some Arabic signs of masculinization are not addressed by the classical linguists. It also concluded that the issue of unnecessary proliferationof words was not a suitable cause for the presence of signs of femininity, as the language is not incapable of generating words, nor burdened by it.