This phenomenon is quite popular in Slavic languages : for example Polish " kreatura " ( deprecative " creature " ) is feminine but can be used to refer both man ( masculine gender ), woman ( feminine gender ), child ( neuter gender ) or even animate nouns ( e . g . a dog being masculine ).
42.
In a sense, the obviative can be defined as any third-person ranked lower on a hierarchy of discourse salience than some other ( proximate ) discourse-participant . Obviative animate nouns, [ in the Plains Cree dialect for instance ], are marked by [ a suffix ] ending, and are used to refer to third persons who are more peripheral in the discourse than the proximate third person .
