Most Interesting Grammar (Philological Room) Language Learning Forum

Most Interesting Grammar
Tags: Multilingual \| Grammar
Share with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Language Learning Forum : Philological Room

35 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

CheeseInsider
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5123 days ago
193 posts - 238 votes

Speaks: English*, Mandarin*
Studies: French, German

Message 33 of 35

19 November 2010 at 10:06pm | IP Logged

Arekkusu wrote:

Can anyone think of a language with articles and no gender, apart from English?

Also, I believe most languages -- if not all -- that do not have a system of noun classification (genders, noun classes or noun classifiers [like Chinese or Japanese]) have some system of declension or cases. Again, English is the only exception I can think of.

English has gender. Sure, the influence of gender is quite small, but it's still there. Girl and boy come into mind. If there was no gender in English, why do we say "The girl is here, she brought a cake." and "The boy is here, he brought the cake." so yeah... We still have gender, it's just really weak.
1 person has voted this message useful

CS
Groupie
United States
Joined 5129 days ago
49 posts - 74 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Icelandic, Latin, French

Message 34 of 35

23 November 2010 at 3:34pm | IP Logged

English does have noun classes, in that plurals may be formed in various ways, e.g.
book/books
man/men
deer/deer
alumnus/alumni

1 person has voted this message useful

thephantomgoat
Groupie
United States
Joined 5472 days ago
52 posts - 103 votes

Message 35 of 35

24 November 2010 at 4:56am | IP Logged

CheeseInsider wrote:

Arekkusu wrote:

Can anyone think of a language with articles
and no gender, apart from English?

Also, I believe most languages -- if not all -- that do not have a system of noun
classification (genders, noun classes or noun classifiers [like Chinese or Japanese])
have some system of declension or cases. Again, English is the only exception I can
think of.

English has gender. Sure, the influence of gender is quite small, but it's still there.
Girl and boy come into mind. If there was no gender in English, why do we say "The girl
is here, she brought a cake." and "The boy is here, he brought the cake." so yeah... We
still have gender, it's just really weak.

Not to mention cars, ships, and boats are often gendered female ("She's a beaut!").
English also has numerous terms to indicate the sex of non-human animals. Among them:

filly / colt
mare / stallion
cow / bull
doe / buck
sow / boar
hen / rooster

And that's only scratching the surface.

As far as adjectives go, "blonde" is gendered female and "blond," male. But this
distinction is no longer commonly made, symbolic of the fact that English has changed
from a highly inflected language with noun gender to an isolating one that preserves
only hints of its former noun gender system.

1 person has voted this message useful

This discussion contains 35 messages over 5 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register

Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum

This page was generated in 0.9063 seconds.