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Re: Noun genders (was: Re: Is English a creole? (was: Indo-European Studies))
Cameron Laird (claird@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM)
31 Jul 1995 06:59:29 -0500
In article <DCFD18.102@midway.uchicago.edu>,
Christopher Monsour <monsourc@ford.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>In article <1995Jul26.091905.18290@onionsnatcorp.ox.ac.uk>,
>Glynis Baguley <gmb@natcorp.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>>Me too. Something I'd be particularly interested to know is whether
>>the terms masculine and feminine (and neuter, etc) have been used for
>>as far back as anyone knows, or whether they were much later. The word
>>`gender', etymologically, has no connection with sex, simply meaning
>>`type' or `kind'. In the languages I have some knowledge of, there are
>>some words that seem to belong to the `wrong' gender, eg `la
>>sentinelle', `das Maedchen' (all diminutives in German are neuter),
>>those first-declension nouns in Latin like `poeta' and `agricola'. Is
>>this because the terms `masculine' and `feminine' have been used, if
>>not arbitrarily, then loosely as convenient but not particularly
>>accurate labels for categories that might just have well have been
>>labelled `Type 1', `Type 2', etc? Are we wrong to think that
Isn't this the way most linguists teach gender?
That is certainly the slant I learned.
>>grammatical gender is closely connected with biological sex or hazy
>>notions of male and female characteristics?
>
>Are you sure about `agricola' and `poeta'? I thought they were
>actually masculine, which would of course be the right gender, but
>with goofy inflections. Unfortunately, I haven't a Latin dictionary
*agricola* and *poeta* are, indeed, masculine nouns.
Follow-ups adjusted.
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--
Cameron Laird http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
claird@Neosoft.com +1 713 267 7966
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