Re: What's a gender?

Den 30. des. 2006 kl. 06.16 skrev Eugene Oh:

> Ah that's new-- do you have any examples?
Yes, here are some common neuters: hus (house), tog (train), øye/au(g)
e (eye), øre/øyre (ear) in indef.sg. Def.pl. is not -ane/-an like in
masculine or -ene/-en/-ane like in feminine, but -a (or -o in some
dialects, -an only in the far north), like the feminine def.sg: husa,
toga, øya, øra. The indef.sg is endingless in all genders, and the
masculine and neuter def.sg. are not identical, -en and -et
respectively, but markedly different from the feminine def.sg. -a,
although the t in -et is not pronounced. (Linguists tend to write the
e off as a schwa, too, but I think this is over-reducing it. However,
the e in the masculine -en is very reduced. In fact I think it giving
it too much credit to call it a schwa, rather the n is syllabic.)

In some dialects the n.def.pl. -a actually has spread to a few
feminines with plural umlauted roots ending in -en, example: hand,
def.sg. handa, indef.pl. hender, def.pl. henda. The d is another mute
consonant. (Our writing systems have long been badly in need of
reform in my opinion.)

The most common forms:
            Masc.      Fem.        Neut.
Indef.sg.  -          -           -
Def.sg.    n         *a/i         e
Indef.pl.  ar/a/ær    er/e/ar     -/a
Def.pl.    ane/an     ene/en/ane *a/o/an

These definite forms arose from the practice of merging definite
articles onto the ends of nouns, starting around a 1000 years ago.
The forms were rather different then, but again with the neuter
plurals resembling the feminine singulars, which I think does suggest
a connection to an IE origin.

Hope the table looks ok to you.

LEF

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