Epicenity is the lack of gender distinction, often reducing the emphasis on the masculine to allow the feminine. It includes androgyny – having both masculine and feminine characteristics. The adjective gender-neutral may describe epicenity (and both terms are associated with the terms gender-neutral language, gender-neutral pronoun, gender-blind, and unisex).[1]
In linguistics, an epicene word has the same form for male and for female referents. In some cases, the term common gender is also used, but should not be confused with common or appellative as a contrary to proper (as in proper noun).In English, for example, the epicene (or common) nouns cousin and violinist can refer to a man or a woman, and so can the epicene (or common) pronoun one. The noun stewardess and the third-person singular pronoun she on the other hand are not epicene (or common).[2]
In languages with grammatical gender, the term epicene can be used in two distinct situations:
In the French language, the noun French: élève 'schoolchild' and the adjective French: espiègle 'mischievous' can be either masculine or feminine, but they are differentiated by the article:
| French: un élève espiègle (masculine) | 'a mischievous schoolboy' (or in some cases 'a mischievous schoolchild' when gender is unknown) | |
| French: une élève espiègle (feminine) | 'a mischievous schoolgirl' |
The same can happen in French with the epicene elided singular articles (French: l'), the definite (French: les) and indefinite (French: des) plural articles, and the contractions French: aux (French: à + French: les) and French: des (French: de + les) when in contact with the noun, so the adjective takes the task of marking the gender:
| French: les adultes français (masculine) | 'the French male adults' or 'the French adults [of any gender]' | |
| French: les adultes françaises (feminine) | 'the French female adults' |
However, there can be cases where the agreement cannot force the disambiguation, even with the presence of pronoun, article, noun and adjective when they are all epicene:
| French: moi, l'élève moldave (masculine or feminine) | 'I, the Moldavian student' |
In the Spanish language, there are very few cases where a noun ignores the semantic gender of the referent. For example, the noun Spanish; Castilian: persona 'person' is grammatically feminine, and only takes any supporting article or adjective in agreement with this gender.
| Spanish; Castilian: la persona (masculine) | 'the person' | |
| Spanish; Castilian: la persona (feminine) | 'the person' |
As the gender of the referent of an epicene is ambiguous it may be necessary to add an adjective to clarify, but the gender of this adjective will also be in agreement with the epicene, for example in the case of the noun Spanish; Castilian: víctima 'victim' which is also an epicene.
| Spanish; Castilian: la víctima masculina (masculine) | 'the male victim' | |
| Spanish; Castilian: la víctima femenina (feminine) | 'the female victim' |