Re: What's a gender?

Lars Finsen skrev:
 > Den 22. des. 2006 kl. 05.56 skrev Benct Philip Jonsson:

Ouch, I wish there was a way to permanently fix my system
clock. As is it sets itself to some random time at
startup, and I've grown tired of resetting it manually al
the time! :-/

 >>
 >> In Swedish _öl_ 'beer' as a mass noun is neuter gender,
 >> but in the meaning 'a glass of beer' it is common gender,
 >> even though _glas_ 'glass' is neuter. (Is it the same in
 >> Norwegian -- Taliesin, Lars, Arnt?)
 >
 > Yes, we too say "Jeg tar en øl, takk". But "Det ølet var
 > surt". However aren't we thinking of two different words
 > with the same root here? Like the titles we sometimes
 > encounter with different endings dependent on the sex of
 > the bearer, common in French and German for example. In
 > the first case the beer is a serving out of a brew, but in
 > the second case the noun refers to the brew. Beer as a
 > general concept also is neuter: "Ølets gleder, ølets
 > forbannelse".

I don't think so, as in Swedish at least _en öl_ has the
same plural -- i.e. _öl_ with no change -- as _ett öl_.
Moreover there is no evidence of a non-neuter parallel word
in the old languages, and even if there were there is no big
chance that it would come down to the modern languages in
identical form, since _ett öl_ comes from an Old Germanic
consonant stem _*aluþ_(borrowed into Finnish and still
_olut_ there! :-). A parallel non-neuter would probably have
been thematic -- masculine _**aluþaz_ or feminine
_**aluþô_, which would have become _öll_ in Swedish, but
as I said there is no evidence of such a form. Everything
points to a late differentiation. My best guess is that _en
öl_ is an ellipsis for _en bägare öl_ 'a beaker of beer'.

--


/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot

                                 (Max Weinreich)

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