Re: What's a gender?

Cool! Thanks for the explanation, it was very illuminating, especially
when combined with Jörg's PIE explanation. Though admittedly it took a
while for me to recall and register properly the position of the
definite article in the Scandinavian languages, heh.

Eugene

2006/12/30, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>:
> 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
>