Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Wol's lists]

On 15/11/17 20:32, David Kastrup wrote:
> David Wright <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > On Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 11:56:07 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> > > Hi Simon,

> > A duchess has gender, but I don't see that the word "duchess" has
> > grammatical gender. How is that expressed?
>
> "The duchess ate her lunch" as opposed to "The duchess ate its lunch"?
>
> German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".

Except that "her" refers to the person, not the noun ...

Mind you, I would feel happy with the following:
The cat ate its lunch (indeterminate gender)
The tom ate its lunch (we know it's male because it's a tom)
The queen ate its lunch (we know it's female because it's a queen)

But I suspect that's because we rarely use "tom" or "queen", and your 
mind substitutes the indeterminate "cat".
> > > > It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the
> > > > same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In
> > > > English the sun is male, the moon female
> > >
> > > I've spoken English my entire life, and I have literally never heard
> > > an exchange like:
> > >
> > >    Q: Is the sun up yet?
> > >    A: Yes — he rose an hour ago.
> >
> > Neither have I, though there is the song "The sun has got his hat on".
> > Again, personification, not grammar.
>
> "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
> And often is his gold complexion dimm'd"
>
> Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare.
But again, personification, not grammar. To me that feels slightly weird 
- as far as I am concerned the sun is "it".

Cheers,
Wol