Lack of Noun Gender in English (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Lack of Noun Gender in English
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s_allard
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Message 25 of 126

18 December 2013 at 5:33am | IP Logged

I would remind people that what we are discussing here is technically called grammatical gender, meaning that it
has nothing to do with any characteristics of the objects named but simply morphological markings. In fact, we
could even speak of noun classes instead of gender.

The reason for using the term grammatical gender is the existence in most languages that use such a feature of
a system of morphological constraints or agreement based on these rules of so-called gender. To learn that one
says LA fille and LE garçon in French is just the beginning. You have to remember that any adjective that refers to
these words much agree in gender. This is what makes the system complicated.

I hypothesize that the main reason for the dying out of the gender marking system in English was the
breakdown of the gender agreement or morphological marking system. Grammatical gender became superfluous
and disappeared.

Edited by s_allard on 18 December 2013 at 2:18pm
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culebrilla
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Message 26 of 126

18 December 2013 at 5:52am | IP Logged

Марк wrote:

English has sex-based gender because there is a distinction between he, she and it. It
creates problems for speakers of languages without this distinction especially with words
like his and her.
"but as a native English speaker, to look at my car and think "He
is in the garage today" or "She needs snow tyres, and her muffler needs fixing" would
be very unintuitive".
But native English speakers often refer to ships or countries as "she", while it can be
strange to other people. It surprized me when I heard a translation of the Soviet anthem
and there were words "will honour HER name". Why "her"? In Russian Советский Союз (The
Soviet Union) is masculine!
Or The Holy Spirit is probably He in English, while it is It in greek and She in Hebrew.

VERY, VERY few nouns are referred to as "she" and even less as "he" in English. It seems that mostly ships and cars are feminine but even this example of gender in English is really not very important at all. If an English learner didn't learn this it really wouldn't be a big deal.
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Serpent
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Message 27 of 126

18 December 2013 at 5:53am | IP Logged

Well but personification clearly has to do with the characteristics of the objects named. And to some extent it happens in the grammatical gender too - the word for flower was masculine in Latin, but apart from Italian it became feminine in pretty much all Romance languages, presumably because flowers are associated with feminine characteristics (that's what my Latin prof, an amazing polyglot, told us at least). And then there's the usual example of ladies being neutral in German until they get married. Yes, it's because of those diminutive suffixes, but why do the normal, default words contain them?

So yes, it's grammar. But sexism is part of it.
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Марк
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Message 28 of 126

18 December 2013 at 9:15am | IP Logged

s_allard wrote:

I would remind people that what we are discussing here is technically called grammatical gender, meaning that it
has nothing to do with any characteristics of the objects named but simply morphological markings. In fact, we
could even speak of noun classes instead of gender.

The reason for using the term grammatical gender is the existence in most languages that use such as feature of
a system of morphological constraints or agreement based on these rules of so-called gender. To learn that one
says LA fille and LE garçon in French is just the beginning. You have to remember that any adjective that refers to
these words much agree in gender. This is what makes the system complicated.

I hypothesize that the main reason for the dying out of the gender marking system in English was the
breakdown of the gender agreement or morphological marking system. Grammatical gender became superfluous
and disappeared.

Different pronouns for different nouns is also a feature of gender. "John" is a masculine noun in English because it is invariably replaced by the pronoun "he" and it is a grammar mistake to use "she" or "it" here. So, we can say that words which refer to people (and a few other words) are masculine or feminine depending on the sex, and other words are neutre. It is called "sex-based gender". Many languages do not have separate pronouns like "he", "she" and "it". And it is hard for their speakers to use the third-person-singular pronouns in English correctly. French has sex-based and formal-based gender.
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tarvos
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Message 29 of 126

18 December 2013 at 11:31am | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

Well but personification clearly has to do with the characteristics of
the objects named. And to some extent it happens in the grammatical gender too - the
word for flower was masculine in Latin, but apart from Italian it became feminine in
pretty much all Romance languages, presumably because flowers are associated with
feminine characteristics (that's what my Latin prof, an amazing polyglot, told us at
least). And then there's the usual example of ladies being neutral in German until they
get married. Yes, it's because of those diminutive suffixes, but why do the normal,
default words contain them?

So yes, it's grammar. But sexism is part of it.

Sorry, but I really don't buy that argument. Personification has nothing to do with
gender in my view. It's just a quirk of that language.
2 persons have voted this message useful

s_allard
Triglot
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Canada
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Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

Message 30 of 126

18 December 2013 at 2:33pm | IP Logged

Марк wrote:

s_allard wrote:

I would remind people that what we are discussing here is technically called
grammatical gender, meaning that it
has nothing to do with any characteristics of the objects named but simply morphological markings. In fact, we
could even speak of noun classes instead of gender.

The reason for using the term grammatical gender is the existence in most languages that use such as feature of
a system of morphological constraints or agreement based on these rules of so-called gender. To learn that one
says LA fille and LE garçon in French is just the beginning. You have to remember that any adjective that refers to
these words much agree in gender. This is what makes the system complicated.

I hypothesize that the main reason for the dying out of the gender marking system in English was the
breakdown of the gender agreement or morphological marking system. Grammatical gender became superfluous
and disappeared.

Different pronouns for different nouns is also a feature of gender. "John" is a masculine noun in English because
it is invariably replaced by the pronoun "he" and it is a grammar mistake to use "she" or "it" here. So, we can say
that words which refer to people (and a few other words) are masculine or feminine depending on the sex, and
other words are neutre. It is called "sex-based gender". Many languages do not have separate pronouns like "he",
"she" and "it". And it is hard for their speakers to use the third-person-singular pronouns in English correctly.
French has sex-based and formal-based gender.

Just to be picky here, "John" is not a masculine noun. "John" refers to a masculine person. These are two different
concepts. The few gender markings in English indicate the sex of the person or being referred to. In a
grammatical gender system, the word is marked for so-called gender regardless of any biological feature of the
referent. This is exactly why some observers prefer to use the idea of noun class and not speak of gender at all.
3 persons have voted this message useful

beano
Diglot
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Message 31 of 126

18 December 2013 at 4:50pm | IP Logged

John can also be a noun meaning a toilet or the client of a prostitute.
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Serpent
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Message 32 of 126

18 December 2013 at 5:31pm | IP Logged

tarvos wrote:

Serpent wrote:

Well but personification clearly has to do with the characteristics of
the objects named. And to some extent it happens in the grammatical gender too - the
word for flower was masculine in Latin, but apart from Italian it became feminine in
pretty much all Romance languages, presumably because flowers are associated with
feminine characteristics (that's what my Latin prof, an amazing polyglot, told us at
least). And then there's the usual example of ladies being neutral in German until they
get married. Yes, it's because of those diminutive suffixes, but why do the normal,
default words contain them?

So yes, it's grammar. But sexism is part of it.

Sorry, but I really don't buy that argument. Personification has nothing to do with
gender in my view. It's just a quirk of that language.

Which language? Which kind of gender? What exactly are you referring to?

Personification is different but it's obviously related. Because when there's a grammatical gender, the personification will always follow it.

1 person has voted this message useful

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