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Languages without Gender? | ||
Tags: Gender | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 17 of 23 08 August 2011 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Gaelic is a strongly-gendered language (masculine and feminine) but there is also the concept of broad and slender vowels. The vowels have a loose association with gender, with slender ones being more feminine and broad ones masculine (for obvious reasons. A is broad (because it is pronounced low in the mouth), E is slender (pronounced high in the mouth). So the masculine and feminine nouns in Manchurian are interesting to me. Coincidence? Possibly, but VS Ramamchandran's theories on spoken language as physical gesture would suggest that it's not.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5130 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 18 of 23 08 August 2011 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my (admittedly very limited) understanding, Ojibwe has what would be considered genders, but they're not based on masculine/feminine, rather they're based on animate/inanimate - or whether something has a spirit or not. It's an interesting twist on how genders may have come to be, in my opinion anyway.
R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 19 of 23 08 August 2011 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||
That falls into noun classes, much in the same way Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, etc., use counters, or Japanese has both counters, and animate vs inanimate. Edited by Arekkusu on 08 August 2011 at 9:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4949 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 20 of 23 15 August 2011 at 4:44am | IP Logged | ||
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I am surprised Finnish has no gender. Then in theory, that should make case learning easier, right?
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 21 of 23 15 August 2011 at 9:22am | IP Logged | ||
Did someone tell you that Finnish has grammatical gender? In theory and if complexity in declension were confined to considerations for grammatical gender, then yes, it would be easier to learn cases. In practice, it's hard to say if learning it would be easier for everyone than doing so in an inflecting language with gender. To express cases properly in Finnish, one applies the rules for vowel harmony (which is relatively easy as the suffix's vowel must be in the same class as that of the main root. This means that almost every suffix comes in two versions e.g. -ssa / -ssä), consonant gradation (basically apply rules for changing the quality/quantity of -k-, -p- or -t- (very rarely -s- if this had developed from -t- in older forms of Finnish) that marks the beginning of the stem's final syllable) or rules for vowel alternations (encountered when declining most cases in plural). *** e.g. Turku on minun kotikaupunkini. "Turku is my hometown" (nominative case) Menen Turkuun. "I'm going (in)to Turku" (illative case) Olen syntynyt Turussa. "I was born in Turku" (inessive case - notice how the -k- is missing here) *** Tämä on kirja "This is a book" (nominative sing.) Kirjan tekijä on Mika Walteri. "The book's author is Mika Walteri" (genitive sing.) Luen kirjaa. "I'm reading a/the book" (partitive sing.) Löysin vanhan sanan kirjasta. "I found an old word in [literally 'from'] the book." (elative sing.) Nämä ovat kirjat. "These are books" (nominative plur.) Kirjojen tekijä on Mika Walteri. "The books' author is Mika Walteri" (genitive plur.) Luemme kirjoja. "We're reading books." (partitive plur.) Löysimme vanhoja sanoja kirjoista. "We found old words in [literally 'from'] the books." (elative plural) When declining in plural, the 'a' may change to 'o' in some cases as shown with kirja (and vanha sana for that matter) above. *** On a related note, a bugbear for many students of Finnish is how to decline the direct object. Basically a direct object in Finnish can be declined in nominative, accusative, genitive or partitive depending on several factors. Choosing the correct case ending can be tough, e.g. Kuuntelen radiota. "I'm listening to the radio" [use partitive] Otan radion. "I'll take a/the radio." [use genitive] Otan radiota. "I'm taking a/the radio." [use partitive] En ota radiota. "I'm not taking a/the radio."/"I won't take a/the radio." [use partitive] Ota radio! "Take the radio!" [use nominative] Ota nämä radiot! "Take these radios!" [use nominative] Näen hänet. "I see him/her" [use accusative] En näe häntä. "I don't see him/her" [use partitive] Kuuntelen häntä. "I'm listening to him/her" [use partitive] Wikibooks has a decent introduction to the complexity of declining for the Finnish direct object. *** Based on my experiences, learning cases in Finnish has taken more time for me than doing the same in Polish even though the latter's cases reflect grammatical gender. However others' experience may differ. I think that you should look at Hungarian because like Finnish it has vowel harmony and lacks grammatical gender BUT it doesn't make you account for these infernal alternations for consonants or vowels nor does it make you do the same for these considerations for the direct object. The point is that I got my head around Hungarian cases somewhat more quickly than those in Polish even though there are more cases in Hungarian than in Polish, and I had studied the former before the latter. Edited by Chung on 16 August 2011 at 4:18am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4949 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 22 of 23 16 August 2011 at 2:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting read there Chung, thanks. No, no one per say told me Finnish had genders, for some reason I assumed it.
I wonder if for people learning analytical languages, where prepositions have taken the function of many cases, have the same problem choosing the correct preposition. You mentioned how it could be quite difficult to choose the correct case in certain circumstances. Consider this (in English): I'm at the bank now. I'm in the bank now. I'm by the bank now. I'm inside the bank now. I'm around the bank now. I'm over at the bank now. Don't these, ultimately, mean the same thing? You are at the location which is the bank. I'm sure that may be confusing to learners of languages that make heavy use of preposition to indicate relationships. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 23 of 23 16 August 2011 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't perceive that much similarity between all of the examples. However I do see blurring happening when saying "at the bank", "in the bank" or "inside the bank" (the last two may be synonymous but not always cf. "it's money in the bank" versus "there's money inside the bank"). For someone learning English, it could be a legitimate question to ask what's the difference between these phrases. What could be confusing initially is when a case ending is used to mark different spatial conditions. For example in Inari Saami, the suffix for the locative is -st and this case is used to indicate not only static position relative to an object, but also movement away from that object. I presume that the difference would be inferred by a native speaker through context. It took me a little time to get used to since I've grown used to languages where the direction of the movement (if any at all) is quite explicit. For example in Inari Saami: Taa lii tupe "That's a/the house" Sun lii tuuveest. "He/she is in a/the house" Sun puátá tuuveest. "He/she is coming from a/the house" Tthe noun has the same case ending and it's the context of the sentence (or in this instance the verb) that makes it clear whether we're talking about motion or position. This kind of use took some time for me to get used to since I've grown used to structures below. 1) Each case ending refers explicitly to the subset of the locative. The case ending itself is associated uniquely and in isolation would show little or no ambiguity to the user. Finnish: Olen talossa "I am in a/the house" Tulen talosta "I am coming from a/the house" 2) The combination of the adposition and its governed case ending is explicit in marking the difference. - 2a) You can use the same adposition but the nominal's case must change to match the difference between motion and position. Slovak: Som na pošte "I am at a/the post office" (na + locative) Idem na poštu "I am going to a/the post office" (na + accusative) - 2b) you can use the same case/form for the nominal but the adposition must change to match the difference between motion and position. English (colloquial) Have you been to Paris? versus Have you been in Paris? (They aren't identical even though their meanings could be interpreted by some as being the same. Using different prepositions signals slight differences for me with the first question implying movement and the second implying (static) presence) Hungarian A fa mögött szaladok "I am running [aimlessly/in circles] behind the tree" (mögött "behind sg with no movement or within a limited area that is always behind sg") A fa mögé szaladok "I am running [to a spot] behind the tree" (mögé "movement to a place behind sg/sb") 1 person has voted this message useful |
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