Mom and Dad but Men and Women

Departing from Benor and Levy’s approach to binomials (2006), this study investigated the sequencing of word pairs by controlling grammatical, geographical, and semantic variables. Accordingly, 59 sex-determined noun pairs commonly actualized in American English were examined. The preferred sequencing of 56 of these pairs is predicted by a heuristic that applies three constraints sequentially: (1) the metrical constraint – if the pair’s syllables are asymmetrical, the noun with fewer syllables comes first; (2) the family relationship constraint (discovered in this study) – if the pair’s syllables are symmetrical and the pair expresses a family relationship, the feminine term precedes the masculine term; and (3) the power constraint, where the masculine noun precedes the feminine term in the remaining symmetrical pairs.