MORPHOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION OF GENDER IN ARABIC, ENGLISH, GERMAN, AND PUNJABI: A COMPARATIVE LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

This research provides insights into the morphological representation of gender across Arabic, English, German, and Punjabi, where the last three belong to same language family (Indo-European) while Arabic belongs to an entirely different family (Afro-Asiatic). Yet, Arabic shows more similarities with Punjabi and German as opposed to English, in terms of gender representation. The Distributed Morphology Theory piloted with Language Typology is used to analyze the selected dataset of short stories for language learners in the four mentioned languages. The findings revealed more gender-neutral approach within the English language while highly rich gender-systems in Arabic, German and Punjabi as a result of morphological analysis of all the grammatical categories (parts of speech). English and German differ significantly on the basis of linguistic gender system despite belonging to same branch of same language family, while both have gender-based differences from Punjabi language belonging to another branch of the same family. On the other hand, Arabic, a member of an entirely different family, shows similarities with German and Punjabi on the basis of grammatical gender. It questions on the classification system of languages in various language families. Such differences appear challenging for the language learners while navigating through the rules of second language. The investigation of interplay between language and gender presents significant contributions in the field of education and linguistic typology. It will also assist the language learners to understand the rules of these languages based on gender and how these rules shape the sociocultural narratives respectively.