English and Gender(s)

greg   Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:45 am GMT
ERRATUM : Le marqueur du neutre fort est le masculin quand le mot est au singulier. Quand le mot est au pluriel, le neutre fort est marqué par le ***FÉMININ***.
Adam   Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:36 am GMT
"A while ago, Adamn claimed that English had 3 Genders.Is this true,partially true or false? "

Why bother asking this question if you can speak English?

Surely you must know the answer.
Adam   Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:40 am GMT
"When I took Spanish and (briefly) French, that was the most alien idea in the world, that inanimate objects had to be arbitrarily male or female. "

English uses grammatical gender, but in a more natural way.

Most inanimate objects are of the "neuter" gender, any living thing that's female is "feminine" and any living thing that's male is "masculine."

But not all inanimate objects are neuter, and not all living things are masculine and feminine.

The words "ship" and "car" are often feminine in English. We say things like "Look at that ship. Isn't she a beauty?"

And some people refer to baby as "it", rather than "he" or "she", so the word "baby" is neuter even though it refers to a living thing.

German is similar In German, "Madchen" means "girl" but it isn't feminine, it's neuter - "das Madchen".
Adam   Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:44 am GMT
"With Dutch we have 3 genders, but the preposition for Male and Female is the same (de). "

English is almost the same.

You have the definite articles "Het" for neuter and "de" for common gender. Masculine and feminine gender have all been combined together to form the common gender.

So in English, the three genders of masculine, feminine and neuter are all combined into "the", just like in Dutch masculine and feminine are all combined into "de."
Adam   Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:49 am GMT
"Nothing anyone posts here will convince me that assigning gender to inanimate objects is anything other than arbitrary and pointless."

I agree. Language gender IS pointless, and the strange thing is that no-one knows where language gender comes from. It's a mystery.

Most languages in the world don't have any grammatical gender.
Adam   Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:52 am GMT
"Here's a thought: in languages where there are NO genders at all (and there are some), English with its "he/she/it" would seem very arbitrary and odd. "

Such as Finnish, which as ZERO grammatical gender.

He/she/it are all "Han" in Finnish.
Damian   Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:54 am GMT
English is either hermaphroditic or just plain asexual. You guys should feel sorry for us natives.....having to go through life speaking asexually. We cannae tell the difference between Arthur and Martha.
Adam   Sat Sep 17, 2005 11:03 am GMT
Old English was very inflected, and had three grammatical genders (masculine, neuter and feminine) like German has, rather than natural gender like Modern English has -


Strong Feminine Nouns
The Concept of Grammatical Gender
This might be the time for a brief aside on gender. Old English nouns had "grammatical gender." This concept is sometimes a hard one to grasp at first, but all it really means is that there are three different sets of noun types, and that modifiers (e.g. demonstratives, adjectives) and replacing pronouns have different sets of forms for each of the sets of noun types.

The sets of noun types are called masculine, feminine, and neuter, but there is not any absolute relation between these conventional labels for the word categories and the objects, persons, or animals that the nouns refer to. For example, "þæt wif," which means "the woman," is a neuter noun, and "se wifmann," which also means "the woman," is a masculine noun. It is especially common to see nouns that refer to inanimate objects but are grammatically "gendered" masculine or feminine.

This is only a hard concept to understand if you get too hung up on the idea of "gender." Modern English has "natural gender," so that we (by and large) use "she" to refer to people or animals who really are female, "he" to refer to people or animals who really are male, "it" to refer to inanimate objects or abstract concepts. Moreover, our nouns, most of them, do not have grammatical "gender," in the sense that all of the articles, adjectives, and so on, that modify them are unaffected by our perception of their genderedness. In Old English the situation is the opposite, almost. The gender of modifiers and of pronouns with noun antecedents is determined largely by the gender of the noun to which they refer, which does not necessarily have any implication about the sex of the object or person being referred to.

Strong Feminine Nouns

The paradigm for strong feminine nouns is giefu, 'gift.':

Strong Feminine Noun giefu

giefu............. Singular .........Plural

Nominative.... séo giefu ........þá giefa
Accusative ......þá giefe .......þá giefa
Genitive .........þære giefe .....þára giefa
Dative .........þære giefe .......þæm giefum
JJM   Sat Sep 17, 2005 2:54 pm GMT
"Language gender IS pointless, and the strange thing is that no-one knows where language gender comes from. It's a mystery."

This is a purely subjective judgment made by a native English speaker. Of course there are many grammatical constructions in our language that might well appear "pointless" (irregular verbs? irregular plurals?).

It's not exactly a mystery at all. We can trace the development of grammatical gender pretty handily in many European languages. We have various other non-Indo-European languages with different noun classification systems to give us a good idea of how grammatical gender got started.

Even in English, our tendency to "feminize" ships, cars and countries gives a useful hint at how grammatical gender can take hold.

"Modern English has 'natural gender,' so that we (by and large) use 'she' to refer to people or animals who really are female, 'he' to refer to people or animals who really are male, 'it' to refer to inanimate objects or abstract concepts."

Alas, English certainly comes close, but fails, the natural gender test.

In natural gender, there are two sexes (obviously); "neuter" is not a sex (it means "neither" in Latin). In English, we refer to many animate things as "it" (a baby, a child, a dog, an insect) even though we know full well that these are animate and have a sex.

There are really only three ways a language can measure up to "natural gender":

1. By having no gender system at all (Finnish, as cited in one post). The "sex" is embedded in the meaning of the word itself.

2. By having a simple animate/inanimate noun classification system.

3. By having four noun classes: male animate, female animate, indeterminate animate and inanimate.

"Moreover, our nouns, most of them, do not have grammatical 'gender,' in the sense that all of the articles, adjectives, and so on, that modify them are unaffected by our perception of their genderedness."

What about personal pronouns? All our nouns must still must be replaced by "he/she/it/(singular) they" depending on their gender. And, as I have shown, "it" can be used for living things (again, a dog cannot be without sex in "natural gender").

So, "grammatical gender" is still hanging in there by the skin of its teeth in modern English.
Candy   Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:25 pm GMT
I told myself I wouldn't post any more on this thread, and yet here I am...;(

<<This is a purely subjective judgment made by a native English speaker. Of course there are many grammatical constructions in our language that might well appear "pointless" (irregular verbs? irregular plurals?).>>

Well yes, but he can't help being a native English speaker and 'thinking English', can he? As we said upthread, opinions on languages (and everything else) ARE subjective. Is this a bad thing necessarily? BTW, are there any European languages without irregular verbs and plurals? (That's a genuine question: I've no idea).

<< In English, we refer to many animate things as "it" (a baby, a child, a dog, an insect) even though we know full well that these are animate and have a sex. >>

Well, I personally would never refer to a baby or child as 'it' - I find it pretty insulting. I always refer to pets as 'he' or 'she' when I know which one they are (and I usually make a point of finding out) As for things like insects or whatever else, I would refer to them as 'it' simply to avoid using 'he' which for far too long (in my opinion) has been the default pronoun in English, and I'm not going to say 'he or she' in conversation. For the same reason, I would say something like 'everyone can do what they want' to avoid using 'he', although I know it's grammatically incorrect.
greg   Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:25 pm GMT
Je trouve que l'expression "genre naturel" ("natural gender" en anglais) n'a aucun sens. Il y a un mot plus précis pour ça : "sexe" ("sex" en anglais). Le genre est forcément grammatical.
JJM   Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:57 pm GMT
Candy:

"Is this a bad thing necessarily?"

Not necessarily. But in trying to understand the grammatical structure of different languages, we should be fully aware of how our own language creates particular biases and notions about "how" language should "work." This can often prevent us from objectively dissecting the structures of othr languages.

"BTW, are there any European languages without irregular verbs and plurals? (That's a genuine question: I've no idea)."

I don't know either, but, based on most Indo-European languages I've studied, all of them tend to have irregularities, particularly in terms of verbs. But this isn't "pointless," it's an "end product" of continuous language evolution and phonetic change.

"Well, I personally would never refer to a baby or child as 'it' - I find it pretty insulting. I always refer to pets as 'he' or 'she' when I know which one they are (and I usually make a point of finding out) As for things like insects or whatever else, I would refer to them as 'it' simply to avoid using 'he' which for far too long (in my opinion) has been the default pronoun in English, and I'm not going to say 'he or she' in conversation."

Your insecurities over language gender are typically those of an English speaker (this is not in any way meant as an insult). They tend to further reinforce the fact that English is close to "natural gender" but not quite there yet. By calling an insect "it," you place it in the same gender as a table. Does that make sense in terms of "natural gender"?

"I would say something like 'everyone can do what they want' to avoid using 'he', although I know it's grammatically incorrect."

Actually, the use of the "singular they" to replace a noun/pronoun of indeterminate gender is fine; it's been a regular feature of English for hundreds of years (Shakespeare and Jane Austen were among the most well known practitioners).

Greg:

Yes, using the term "natural gender" is a bit of a nuisance. Mixing "gender" and "sex" when talking about languages can make things confusing. Unfortunately though, in English, the word "gender" is often used synonymously with the word "sex."
Candy   Sat Sep 17, 2005 4:08 pm GMT
<<(Shakespeare and Jane Austen were among the most well known practitioners). >>

OK then, if it was good enough for them....:)

<<By calling an insect "it," you place it in the same gender as a table. Does that make sense in terms of "natural gender"? >>

I doubt that many people have much sense of insects as 'sexed' (except entomologists, or whatever you call them) And aren't there some species of insects or animals which can change sex? Seems OK to call them 'it'. (But OK, this is getting silly - I'm not really disagreeing with you here)

<<Your insecurities over language gender are typically those of an English speaker (this is not in any way meant as an insult).>>

Just as well, really! I'd say my 'insecurities' are more a result of strident feminism than being an English speaker (but that's a whole other discussion....) ;)
JJM   Sat Sep 17, 2005 4:37 pm GMT
"I doubt that many people have much sense of insects as 'sexed' (except entomologists, or whatever you call them) And aren't there some species of insects or animals which can change sex? Seems OK to call them 'it'."

It doesn't matter whether we can sex insects or not, that's not the point.

If English requires you to place an animate thing (insect, tree, fish) in the same noun class (gender) as an inanimate thing or a concept (table, hate, taxation), it's not operating a gender system that's much more "logical" than French. However, because you're a native speaker, this presents no problems. Just as, "la/le" is not an issue for a French speaker.

"Just as well, really! I'd say my 'insecurities' are more a result of strident feminism than being an English speaker"

Not entirely, English ALLOWS you to inject feminism into the language.

It's not so easy in many other European languages. In French, you must pick a gender and the default setting is masculine.* However, there are also words describing people that are feminine regardless of sex: "personne," "sentinelle" and "victime" to name three.

* Ten women and one man are always "ils" (masculine "they") but, because there are just two genders, it would not be sexually "fairer" the other way round ie, 10 men and one woman being "elles'.
Candy   Sat Sep 17, 2005 5:07 pm GMT
<<* Ten women and one man are always "ils" (masculine "they") but, because there are just two genders, it would not be sexually "fairer" the other way round ie, 10 men and one woman being "elles'. >>

I was really hacked off about that when I learnt it, aged 11. I remember asking the teacher 'what if there are a million women and 1 man?' and getting the answer 'you still say ils'. Humph....and yes, clearly it wouldn't be 'fairer' the other way around. It would however correct sexual imbalances a bit. (No, I'm *not* seriously suggesting that French-speaking people change it. It's supposed to be light-hearted, like a lot of the things I've posted. I couldn't possibly care less if insects have a sex or not.)

<<it's not operating a gender system that's much more "logical" than French.>>

I haven't said anywhere that English is more 'logical' than French. But I'm still glad that English doesn't have different words for 'the'. And yes, OBVIOUSLY it wouldn't matter to me (as a native speaker) if it did, because I'd know it automatically. So what? If I'd been born a man, I'm sure I'd be glad about it. But as a woman, I'm happy that I wasn't. That's the way things are.

<<Not entirely, English ALLOWS you to inject feminism into the language. >>

Yes, I KNOW. But I still choose to do it, and some other people don't. Not sure what your point is here, other than I think and say things the way I do because I'm a native English speaker (and we've only said THAT 50 times already)