Das generische Maskulinum im Deutschen. Ein historischer Spaziergang durch die deutsche Grammatikschreibung von der Renaissance bis zur Postmoderne

Abstract

The concern of the present article is the evolution of the "generic masculine" in German as it is reflected in the grammars of the German language from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Grammarians recognized the ability of all masculine personal nouns to refer to both sexes only by the beginning of the 20th century and an adequate description is found as late as the 1960s. Formerly, women and men used to be segregated by grammatical description. The history of this process is being explored in detail and illustrated by citations from original works.