The analysis of grammatical units, the basis of which is the category of gender of nouns is given. These units denote living beings that have gender correlates. The article examines the functioning of gender correlates referred to persons based on the lyric works by Marlena Rakhlina.
The object of analysis is morphological categories in Rakhlina’s poetry. The subject of the research is gender juxtapositions related to persons in poems by Rakhlina. The poetic potential of linguistic units in literary functioning is revealed by means of the functional method; the distributive method made it possible to consider morphological units in a poetic text based on contextual correlation and compatibility; with the help of context-interpretation analysis morphological ways of implementing the author's intention to create poetic meaning are characterized.
Among the nouns referred to living beings in the lyrics by Rakhlina gender correlates that denote persons are presented. Four different types of such gender correlates have been revealed. Gender semantics is realized in pairs of one-root personal substantives with derivational suffixes of feminine gender; in gender correlates, systemically reflecting family relationships; in opposites that denote various age groups; in oppositional pairs, expressed in different parts of speech. The types of gender juxtapositions identified in the poems by Rakhlina can be expressed in different parts of speech and reflect the meanings of not only unification in a married couple or a pair of lovers, but also unification along the same type of people. Such consolidation quite often indicates family relationships between the lyric character of the poem and her children, which go through different age phases. The materials of this article can be used in classes on grammar and stylistics of the Russian language.
