Английского

§ 4. As we see, the category of gender in English is inherently se-
mantic, i.e. meaningful in so far as it reflects the actual features of 
the named objects. But the semantic nature of the category does not 
in the least make it into "non-grammatical", which follows from 
the whole content of what has been said in the present work. 
In Russian, German, and many other languages characterised by 
the gender division of nouns, the gender has purely formal features 
that may even "run contrary" to semantics. Suffice it to compare 
such Russian words as стакан — он, чашка—она, блюдце — 
оно, as well as their German correspondences das Glas — es, die 
Tasse — sie, der Teller — er, etc. But this phenomenon is rather 
an exception than the rule in terms of grammatical categories in 
general. 
Moreover, alongside of the "formal" gender, there exists in Rus-
sian, German and other "formal gender" languages meaningful 
gender, featuring, within the respective idiomatic systems, the 
natural sex distinctions of the noun referents. 
In particular, the Russian gender differs idiomatically from the 
English gender in so far as it divides the nouns by the higher oppo-
sition not into "person — non-person" ("human— non human"), 
but into "animate —inanimate", discriminating within the former 
(the animate nounal set) between masculine, feminine, and a lim-
ited number of neuter nouns. Thus, the Russian category of gender 
essentially divides the noun into the inanimate set having no 

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meaningful gender, and the animate set having a meaningful gen-
der. In distinction to this, the English category of gender is only 
meaningful, and as such it is represented in the nounal system as a 
whole.