"Nutzende" – "Kritisierende" – "Forschende": On the Use of Nominalized Participles as a Gender-Inclusive Reference Strategy

Abstract

German plural forms of substantive participles used to refer to people, e.g., Teilnehmende (‘participants’) are considered as gender-neutral. For this reason, these forms are recommended and used for gender-inclusive language. However, the question arises whether the substantive particles in question have the same meaning as agent nouns derived from a verb, e.g., Teilnehmer (‘participants‘), and whether their use is compatible with the regularities of German grammar. In addition, it is particularly controversial whether these participles have a specific aspectual meaning. To address these questions, the present study analyses synchronous and historical data from two newspaper corpora (die tageszeitung, years 2000 and 2022, as well as Mannheim corpus of historical newspapers and magazines 1737–1905). The comparison reveals that substantive participles are semantically largely equivalent to deverbal nouns and that they are predominantly used to refer to characteristics, group membership, and habits. Importantly, the pattern was already used in the 19th century and is by no means a new development.