Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Erik Ronström]

Swedish (if anyone’s interested) has two grammatical genders, but they are not 
connected to male/female. Third person singular ”den”/”det” would both just 
translate to ”it” in English, whereas ”han” and ”hon” (”he” and ”she”) are 
separate pronouns only used for people (plus animals and things to which you 
have a personal relation).

(So I don’t know if you could say that we technically have four grammatical 
genders, I have a vague memory from my school time about it)

Erik





> 15 nov. 2017 kl. 23:32 skrev Wol's lists <address@hidden>:
> 
> 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
> 
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