Pogodyn, pogodynek czy prezenter pogody? Nowe nazwy męskie i językowe mechanizmy ich tworzenia
Pogodyn, pogodynek or prezenter pogody ‘weatherman’? New personal masculine nouns and linguistic mechanisms of their formation

Summary/Abstract: The subject of our analysis is an interesting, new and hitherto unexamined phenomenon in contemporary Polish of forming masculine equivalents of feminine personal nouns such as pogodynka ‘female weather forecaster,’ kosmetyczka ‘female beautician’ or niania ‘female nanny.’ Basing on Internet sources and a questionnaire study carried out among 80 female and male student participants, the paper identifies the major linguistic mechanisms employed in forming new masculine nouns, that is grammatical gender change (from feminine to masculine) of the input item (pogodynka ‘female weather forecaster’ > pogodynek ‘weatherman’), clipping of the feminine suffix –k(a) ((przedszkolanka ‘female kindergarten teacher’ > przedszkolan ‘male kindergarten teacher’) and the use of masculine personal suffixes (świetlica ‘day-care room’ > świetlic(z)arz ‘male day-care room supervisor’). Moreover, significant differences in the opinions of women and men are pointed out; the female students’ most frequent choice involves nouns derived from feminitives (niania ‘female nanny’ > nianiek/niań ‘male nanny’), whereas male students avoid such forms and suggested descriptive phrases (niania ‘female nanny’ > opiekun do dziecka ‘male child caretaker’) and suffixal nouns not derived from feminine items (przedszkole ‘kindergarten’ > przedszkolarz/przedszkolanin ‘male kindergarten teacher’).

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