On neuter gender nouns with human referents in the Slovene language

The article discusses the use of some neuter gender nouns with human referents in the western part of Slovene territory. The analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 informants focused on shades of meaning (degrading, pejorative, affectionate) denoting referents of statements, and on the variation in the use of neuter gender nouns in relation to geographical location and age. The first part of the article aims to determine whether neuter gender nouns with human referents are used in relation to young and non-sexual referents, as indicated in the introduction. It can be claimed that in the imagination of our informants at least 'dekle' (young woman) and 'dete' (child) are characterized by relative asexuality, which is slightly less evident in relation to the noun 'fante' (young man). All three nouns are used to refer to young people before the passage ritual (marriage). The second part of the article provides an analysis of nouns used in certain speech acts to denote the power of the speaker over the referent. The overview of literature actually reveals that the core meanings of the selected examples 'revse' (poor fellow), 'clovece' (small, skinny man), 'otroce' (child, usually small), and zensce (V (tiny woman, usually old) are usually accompanied by affectionate or pejorative shades of meaning. The research reveals that native speakers of the Slovene language instinctively associate these nouns with something small and young, children or inanimate objects. It seems that the use of the neuter gender suggests a metonymy between an adult and a child, or between an adult and an object (inanimate). It has already been indicated that in addition to inanimate referents (asexual by nature) the unmarked use of the neuter gender is limited to refer to something small and asexual as well, which probably constitutes the link between both usages. If this is truly the case, it can be claimed that affectionate and pejorative uses (and not other shades of meaning, for example) of these terms are generated by the comparison between these two semantic concepts.