| Страниц в теме: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | Which languages don't have a gender system? Автор темы: Sara Senft
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Tim Drayton 
Кипр
Local time: 21:55
турецкий => английский
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| No declension in English? | Oct 8, 2009 |
PS
By declension, I take it you are referring to cases, rather than plurals. Doesn't the English possessive '-s' (e.g. the boy's friend) count as a genitive case form?
| | | | | English lacks declensions | Oct 8, 2009 |
I was refering to a system where noun phrases (nouns, adjectives or articles) take on a different form based on their relationship with the verb. Yes, cases, like nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, etc.
You can say that possessive s in English is genitive, but all languages have a way of expressing genitive. This does not imply the existence of a declension system.
I would say that if you can look at a noun phrase (eg: the nice dog) and you can't tell whether it'... See more I was refering to a system where noun phrases (nouns, adjectives or articles) take on a different form based on their relationship with the verb. Yes, cases, like nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, etc.
You can say that possessive s in English is genitive, but all languages have a way of expressing genitive. This does not imply the existence of a declension system.
I would say that if you can look at a noun phrase (eg: the nice dog) and you can't tell whether it's the subject or object of a verb, you don't have declensions.
[Edited at 2009-10-08 14:02 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tim Drayton
Кипр
Local time: 21:55
турецкий => английский
+ ...
Alexandre Coutu wrote:
You can say that possessive s in English is genitive, but all languages have a way of expressing genitive. This does not imply the existence of a declension system.
[Edited at 2009-10-08 14:02 GMT]
All languages have a way of expressing the genitive, but not all do so by means of inflection. CF French L'ami du garcon, where du, de la etc. perform this function, and the noun remains unaltered. English, of course, has both options. The boy's friend or The friend of the boy. In all languages that I know of which have case systems, there always seems to be what is referred to as a genitive case. I have always felt that the -s posessive in English was a kind of genitive case, but possibly not. You are suggesting that the notion of case is restricted to those inflectional forms which point to relationships with the verb.
| | | | Tim Drayton
Кипр
Local time: 21:55
турецкий => английский
+ ...
| Genitive in English? | Oct 8, 2009 |
The following argument seems to be true to me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case
"Some linguists argue that it is a common misconception that English nouns have a genitive case, marked by the particle that is always pronounced as part of the preceding word. This is claimed on the basis of the following sort of example: "The king of Sparta’s wife was called H... See more The following argument seems to be true to me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case
"Some linguists argue that it is a common misconception that English nouns have a genitive case, marked by the particle that is always pronounced as part of the preceding word. This is claimed on the basis of the following sort of example: "The king of Sparta’s wife was called Helen." If the English -’s were a genitive case mark, then the wife would belong to Sparta; but the -’s attaches not to the word Sparta, but to the entire phrase the king of Sparta." ▲ Collapse
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Sheila Wilson
Испания
Local time: 19:55
Член ProZ.com c 2007
английский
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| It's not a car or a ship, it's a boy! | Oct 8, 2009 |
Derek Gill Franßen wrote:
As far as I can tell, it is not slang but rather thought to be a remnant from Old English, which supposedly still had grammatical gender
I certainly agree with that - old and becoming older by the minute. A favourite with my father (who would NEVER have used slang), but I hate it and my son would certainly never use it. For me it comes from the same pretentious, euphemistic world as another of my father's favourites:
Animals sweat,
Men perspire,
But ladies merely glow.
The Naval Historical Center has this to say about it: "It has always been customary to personify certain inanimate objects and attribute to them characteristics peculiar to living creatures. Thus, things without life are often spoken of as having a sex. Some objects are regarded as masculine. The sun, winter, and death are often personified in this way. Others are regarded as feminine, especially those things that are dear to us. The earth as mother Earth is regarded as the common maternal parent of all life.
Perhaps this gentleman (I'm sure it wan't a lady) would best understand my reaction in these terms: poppycock and balderdash!
To be fair, I'm sure it is based on historical fact - people did think that way - but this is the 21st century and the sentence above that I've highlighted is in the present tense, giving non-native speakers the idea that it's still "correct". Nowadays, all inanimate objects (at least, when I refer to them) are "it", along with animals where I have no idea of gender, and even new-born babies before the midwife (midhusband??) has had a chance to see what's what.
| | | | Abas Dehnad
Local time: 22:25
курдский => английский
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| what about hawrami ? | Feb 20, 2012 |
Ata Arif BA, BA (HONS), ACIL wrote:
In Kurdish we do not have the gender problem as the same pronoun could be used for both sexes.
[Edited at 2009-10-05 14:19 GMT]
i am shure they have gender based verbs and pronouns
| | | | | Gender in Kurmanji Kurdish | Jul 17, 2012 |
Tim Drayton wrote: Ata Arif wrote:
In Kurdish we do not have the gender problem as the same pronoun could be used for both sexes.
[Edited at 2009-10-05 14:19 GMT] I cannot claim to know a great deal about Kurdish, but I thought (at least in the variety of the language known as 'Kurmanji' in Turkey) there was a masculine and feminine gender. Doesn't the word 'mal' mean 'house' when feminine, and 'property' when masculine?
***
Hi Tim,
You are absolutely right Kurmanji Kurdish gender. Each noun is either masculine or feminine. And, yes 'mal' mean 'house' when feminine, and 'property' when masculine.
I am not sure, though, what does Ata Arif mean by saying "In Kurdish we do not have the gender problem as the same pronoun could be used for both sexes."
Mutlu
| | | | Tom in London
Великобритания
Local time: 19:55
Член ProZ.com c 2008
итальянский => английский
| he/she/they and "Man" | Jul 17, 2012 |
In recent times British English has been intentionally changed to be egalitarian and non-gender-specific. Terms such as "Man's Conquest of Space" have become "The Conquest of Space"; expressions that used to say "the applicant must fill in his details" become "applicants must fill in their details"; "The history of Man" becomes "The history of the human race" etc.
Etc.
Whilst I applaud this and welcome it as progress, it can lead to some awkwardnesses such as "the perso... See more In recent times British English has been intentionally changed to be egalitarian and non-gender-specific. Terms such as "Man's Conquest of Space" have become "The Conquest of Space"; expressions that used to say "the applicant must fill in his details" become "applicants must fill in their details"; "The history of Man" becomes "The history of the human race" etc.
Etc.
Whilst I applaud this and welcome it as progress, it can lead to some awkwardnesses such as "the person filling in this form must give their full details".
[Edited at 2012-07-17 10:53 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Phil Hand
Китай
Local time: 02:55
китайский => английский
| Grammatical gender vs natural gender | Jul 17, 2012 |
I don't know if it's been pointed out in the thread, but grammatical gender isn't always about sex. There's a great book by George Lakoff called Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, which talks about some of the oddities of linguistic groups - the things listed in the title are the types of things which fall into a single gender group in one Australian language.
Chinese wouldn't be said to have gender, but it does have a very rich system of classifiers, words that you put between a num... See more I don't know if it's been pointed out in the thread, but grammatical gender isn't always about sex. There's a great book by George Lakoff called Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, which talks about some of the oddities of linguistic groups - the things listed in the title are the types of things which fall into a single gender group in one Australian language.
Chinese wouldn't be said to have gender, but it does have a very rich system of classifiers, words that you put between a number and a noun to indicate what kind of thing it is. We have them in English, too: one *slice* of bread, three *cups* of milk. But they're not needed in every case - you can say two cars, with no classifier. In Chinese, you can't. They play a somewhat equivalent function to grammatical gender, grouping nouns into odd collections.
And they're great fun to mess with. You count cattle by the head, just as in English, and we and several other parents we know refer to our broods using that classifier: we have two head of children. ▲ Collapse
| | | | mjbjosh
Local time: 20:55
английский => латышский
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Sheila Wilson wrote:
Nowadays, all inanimate objects (at least, when I refer to them) are "it", along with animals where I have no idea of gender, and even new-born babies before the midwife (midhusband??) has had a chance to see what's what.
I am afraid, this is not true. The ships and some other noun categories are still feminine, according to respectable English grammar manuals.
| | | | Ty Kendall
Великобритания
Local time: 19:55
иврит => английский
mjbjosh wrote: Sheila Wilson wrote:
Nowadays, all inanimate objects (at least, when I refer to them) are "it", along with animals where I have no idea of gender, and even new-born babies before the midwife (midhusband??) has had a chance to see what's what. I am afraid, this is not true. The ships and some other noun categories are still feminine, according to respectable English grammar manuals.
.....which ones?
| | | | | Helen of Troy | Jan 25, 2013 |
Tim Drayton wrote: The following argument seems to be true to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case "Some linguists argue that it is a common misconception that English nouns have a genitive case, marked by the particle that is always pronounced as part of the preceding word. This is claimed on the basis of the following sort of example: "The king of Sparta’s wife was called Helen." If the English -’s were a genitive case mark, then the wife would belong to Sparta; but the -’s attaches not to the word Sparta, but to the entire phrase the king of Sparta."
It could be argued that, because Sparta went to war with Troy over the abduction of Helen (who was quite keen on being abducted), Sparta did consider her to be Sparta's wife ... at least that was Sparta's excuse.
After all, Henry V of England went to war with France over the Dauphin of France's tennis balls ... at least, that was his excuse.
Jenny
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sleslie23
США
Local time: 13:55
испанский => английский
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Guarani (spoken in Paraguay and parts of Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil) does not have grammatical gender. 3rd person pronouns, for example are identical for male and female:
ha'e - he/she
ha'e kuéra - they
Additonally, nouns have no gender per se. However, like some indigenous languages, there are gender-specific differences in words related to kinship. The word a father uses to refer to a male is different from the one for a female child. Additionally, these ar... See more Guarani (spoken in Paraguay and parts of Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil) does not have grammatical gender. 3rd person pronouns, for example are identical for male and female:
ha'e - he/she
ha'e kuéra - they
Additonally, nouns have no gender per se. However, like some indigenous languages, there are gender-specific differences in words related to kinship. The word a father uses to refer to a male is different from the one for a female child. Additionally, these are different than those the mother uses, etc. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | English has natural gender, and four | Jul 17, 2013 |
English has natural gender, which means the gender of the noun is what the sex of the item is. Man is masculine, woman is feminine, house in neuter, meaning no sex. Words like dog, horse, in fact many animals and human are common gender, meaning either or both sexes. Pronouns are the only place where gender occurs. All plurals are common unless specifically of one sex. An exception is certain objects (naturally neuter) become feminine such as cars or ships (sometimes planes or machines) when eit... See more English has natural gender, which means the gender of the noun is what the sex of the item is. Man is masculine, woman is feminine, house in neuter, meaning no sex. Words like dog, horse, in fact many animals and human are common gender, meaning either or both sexes. Pronouns are the only place where gender occurs. All plurals are common unless specifically of one sex. An exception is certain objects (naturally neuter) become feminine such as cars or ships (sometimes planes or machines) when either loved or troublesome. Maybe seen to be like a woman---either loved or making trouble. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Strange use of plural for singular | Jul 17, 2013 |
Tom in London wrote:
In recent times British English has been intentionally changed to be egalitarian and non-gender-specific. Terms such as "Man's Conquest of Space" have become "The Conquest of Space"; expressions that used to say "the applicant must fill in his details" become "applicants must fill in their details"; "The history of Man" becomes "The history of the human race" etc.
Etc.
Whilst I applaud this and welcome it as progress, it can lead to some awkwardnesses such as "the person filling in this form must give their full details".
[Edited at 2012-07-17 10:53 GMT]
It seems in an effort to avoid the use of a masculine form for both sexes, we have resorted to using the plural. If we properly called "he" both the common and the masculine form, or created a new common form, we would not have this anomolous situation. Functional linguistics might call they/them the common form, which just happens to be the same as the plural form, which is naturally common. Strangely, this is also beginning to happen Modern Hebrew, too.
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