EL GÉNERO DEL CASTELLANO: ENTELEQUIAS Y REALIDADES.

This paper carries out an examination of gender and its relationship with sex in the Spanish language. The difference between both these objects is pointed out and the minor connections obtaining between them investigated. The analytic machinery of gender is presented and its purely formal and linguistic nature emphasised. The contrast between biological sex (material in living creatures) and semantic sex (linguistic in words) is drawn and highlighted, and the mutual correspondences between the two shown to be largely arbitrary. Neglect of this reality will be seen often to have led to important shortcomings in the analysis and understanding of the matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]