What gender are Pole Kowalski and his comrades? On lesser known aspects of masculine generics

Abstract

The paper examines a hitherto unadressed aspect of the generic function of the masculine personal nouns: Kowalski ‘surname, male’, Polak ‘Pole, male’ and kolega/koledzy ‘comrade(s), male’ in current Polish media and scholarly texts. In spite of their masculine dictionary definitions and prevailing male connotations, as well as their assignment to the ‘male only’ category in linguistic studies, these items frequently acquire a general meaning and can refer to both men and women. Such ambiguity of the nouns in question, of which text writers are often unaware, is particularly problematic for some scholarly studies as it affects negatively their clarity, cohesion and precision. In this paper masculine generics are approached from the perspective of the cognitive prototype theory.