THE ANALYSIS OF ACCEPTABILITY LEVELS OF SOCIAL FEMINATIVES IN SERBIAN IN THE CONTEXT OF AGREEMENT: ATTITUDES OF SERBIAN LANGUAGE, ENGLISH LANGUAGE, AND SOCIOLOGY STUDENTS OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY IN NIŠ
THE ANALYSIS OF ACCEPTABILITY LEVELS OF SOCIAL FEMINATIVES IN SERBIAN IN THE CONTEXT OF AGREEMENT: ATTITUDES OF SERBIAN LANGUAGE, ENGLISH LANGUAGE, AND SOCIOLOGY STUDENTS OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY IN NIŠ

Summary/Abstract: This paper analyses the attitudes of Serbian Language, English Language, and Sociology students of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš, towards the use of morphological and morphosyntactic means in marking that a woman is a performer of a profession. The aim is to present how Serbian native speakers value the acceptability of the three groups of examples: (1) the ones where it is marked that a profession is performed by a woman on the morphosyntactic level by a subject-verb agreement (Načelnik Ana Antić održala je sednicu ‘The chief Ana Antić heldFSg. a meeting’), (2) the ones where it is established by morphological means (Načelnica Ana Antić održaće sednicu ‘The chiefFSg. Ana Antić will hold a meeting’), and (3) the ones where it is established by combining morphological and morphosyntactic means (Načelnica Ana Antić održala je sednicu ‘The chiefFSg. Ana Antić heldFSg. a meeting’). Firstly, the research indicates that English Language students are not sensitive to the analysed means. Secondly, Serbian Language students do not indicate any differences when valuing the acceptability of the examples from the second and the third condition, but they rate the examples from the first condition significantly higher. In other words, morphosyntactic means are more acceptable to Serbian Language students than morphological means. Finally, the combination of morphological and morphosyntactic means is more acceptable to Sociology students than the use of just one mean, and morphological means are more acceptable to them than morphosyntactic ones. When the acceptability of the combination of morphological and morphosyntactic means in the group of Sociology students is considered, the language economy principle is not activated.

• Details
• Contents