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Gender articles for nouns - why? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| spirit splice Newbie United States Joined 5034 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 55 24 February 2011 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Learning German and looking at the different articles for nouns based on their gender (I believe other
languages use this though English does not) I am left wondering what purpose could this serve. I find no useful utility for a noun having a gender. English gets along fine without it and all it seems to do is muddy the water and complicate things. Is there a historical usefulness for this or is it just an oddity of language? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zecchino1991 Senior Member United States facebook.com/amyybur Joined 5258 days ago 778 posts - 885 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Arabic (Written), Romanian, Icelandic, Georgian | Message 2 of 55 24 February 2011 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wonder this all the time!
I once read a Spanish book and at the beginning it said something like, "now, you may not see the point of grammatical gender right now, but I promise you will once you're done with this book." I read the whole thing, and I still do not understand why it exists. Of course I understand how to use it and can do so without trouble when I speak a language that has it, but what I don't understand is WHY it exists and how it came about. There must be a reason, though, because it is so common in world languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| spirit splice Newbie United States Joined 5034 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 3 of 55 24 February 2011 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I mean how does a person look at a hammer and know that it's masculine or feminine? It seems to make
no sense. I think it ought to be gotten rid of in all languages as part of a thorough auditing of their stupid orthohraphies. And yes I include English in this. All languages ought to be fully phonetic with only ONE way to pronounce each consonant or vowel, no matter where it lies in a word. But back to the topic at hand..... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| CS Groupie United States Joined 5128 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Latin, French | Message 4 of 55 24 February 2011 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Grammatical gender can sometimes help eliminate a bit of ambiguity in a language with regard to pronouns and
such, and perhaps free up word order a little. Ultimately it's just one of the things that make natural languages so much fun, and it should be enjoyed on that basis. Learn the gender when you learn a word, at least if the word's that important to you. Or learn one of the many languages without gender but with other quirks to make up for it. Edited by CS on 25 February 2011 at 10:23pm 3 persons have 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 5 of 55 24 February 2011 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Grammatical gender in Indo-European languages possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European hypothetically dividing nouns into two classes: animate and inanimate. Over time this general binary distinction was then reinterpreted or modified in successor languages as classes corresponding to observable animal gender (masculine, feminine, whatever's left/neuter) and even applied to objects or ideas which by definition do not have reproductive organs. Perhaps it's odd or pointless but all part of the language, willy-nilly. Noun classes are just a way that some speakers classify, compartmentalize or organize phenomena or ideas, nothing more. Other languages exhibit noun divisions beyond gender-based analogy or perception. For example, Luganda has 10-17 noun classes (depends on how you count them) including classes reserved for each of nouns denoting languages and verbal nouns. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5066 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 6 of 55 24 February 2011 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I once read in a book about Spanish that you shouldn't think of grammatical gender as giving objects male or
female characteristics but rather as just another grammatical category to apply to the language. I wonder why the categories are associated with gender though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zecchino1991 Senior Member United States facebook.com/amyybur Joined 5258 days ago 778 posts - 885 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Arabic (Written), Romanian, Icelandic, Georgian | Message 7 of 55 24 February 2011 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think Chung's post could explain that, Kartof. Although I always just assumed it was
because that's a convenient way to describe things that come in two categories. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 55 24 February 2011 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | ||
English used to have grammatical gender, but it sort of fizzled out as it morphed into modern English. There are still traces of it, though, such as calling ships "she". 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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