[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [OT] Grammatic gender
From: |
David Wright |
Subject: |
Re: [OT] Grammatic gender |
Date: |
Wed, 15 Nov 2017 13:36:23 -0600 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) |
On Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 07:54:03 (+0000), Hilary Snaden wrote:
> On 15/11/17 01:13, Andrew Bernard wrote:
> >Hi Simon,
> >
> >As a native English speaker, allow me to say that the examples you have
> >given are not grammatical gender but literary. English does not have such a
> >thing. Since there are no gendered definite or indefinite articles ('the',
> >'a') there is just no such concept in English grammar.
> >
> >Often people refer to boats as 'she', but that's not a part of grammar. As
> >for 'grammatic gender of death' - it's pure tosh, I am sorry. For a start,
> >death cannot have a gender as it is an abstract noun. Any such description
> >is purely literary. As an aside, although 'grammatic' is considered to be
> >in current use, most people now would use the form 'grammatical', the most
> >recent example of use in the Oxford English Dictionary II being 1889. [But
> >I have no objection to using older and obsolete words - in fact, I love it!]
>
> It looks from the preceding post that the "grammatic gender of
> death" was a reference to a non-English language, in which case it
> may not be tosh at all. The rest of your points are sound. (Though I
> prefer "grammatic" myself. :-))
The statement was "Only yesterday I talked with an
American native english speaker
about the grammatic gender of death; she said it could be all three,
depending on circumstances…"
I can only make sense of this as "native speaker of American English".
Perhaps if America had been colonised several hundred years earlier,
they might have hung onto gender just as they have (I assume) with
"gotten" and some other forms that sound odd to English ears.
If English nouns have gender, it must be possible to give examples.
The sun and moon don't have grammatical gender, but they were
personified as male and female gods. That doesn't count.
Cheers,
David.
- Re: double time signature problem, (continued)
- Re: double time signature problem, Simon Albrecht, 2017/11/14
- Re: double time signature problem, Noeck, 2017/11/14
- Re: double time signature problem, Werner Arnhold, 2017/11/15
- Re: double time signature problem, Knut Petersen, 2017/11/15
- Re: double time signature problem, Wols Lists, 2017/11/15
- [OT] Grammatic gender, Simon Albrecht, 2017/11/14
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Andrew Bernard, 2017/11/14
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Jacques Menu Muzhic, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Karlin High, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Hilary Snaden, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender,
David Wright <=
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Wols Lists, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Urs Liska, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, J Martin Rushton, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Blöchl Bernhard, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Helge Kruse, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Kieren MacMillan, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Karlin High, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, David Wright, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, David Kastrup, 2017/11/15
- Re: [OT] Grammatic gender, Wol's lists, 2017/11/15