Re: What's a gender?

On Wed, Dec 20, 2006 at 02:47:57PM -0800, David J. Peterson wrote:
> Mark wrote:
> <<
> Anyway, just wondering what the criteria are.  If my conlang has noun
> classes, does it therefore have gender, or does it depend on more
> specific details of how the classes work?
> >>
>
> Yes (to the first).  The way "gender" is used is it's supposed to be a
> metaphor.  In humans, we have male and female genders, and you can
> tell them apart by their reproductive organs.  In language X, there
> are four genders, and you can tell them apart by the agreement they
> showcase on the verb:
>
> Gender 1: ma-/-m (subject/object)
> Gender 2: se-/-s
> Gender 3: li-/-l
> Gender 4: ko-/-k
[...]

This makes one wonder if gender systems originate from vowel (or
otherwise) harmony, or perhaps rhyme.


[...]
> Mark:
> <<
> For instance, Japanese, "one person" is "hitori", while "one fish" is
> "itibi", the suffixes "ri" and "bi" having no obvious connection with
> the normal nouns for "person" and "fish".  I've sometimes heard it
> said that these classes constitute gender, but is that generally
> considered true?  There are an awful lot of them, and several nouns
> are in a class by themselves.
> >>
>
> It would seem so to me, based on your description.
>
> Now the difference between a classifier system and gender is that I
> guess noun classifier systems are more limited, aren't used in verbal
> agreement (?), and/or aren't used in derivation, whereas noun
> classes/genders are (or can be).  I've never been comfortable with the
> distinction, and every time I've heard it explained, I haven't
> necessarily agreed with it.  Perhaps others can help fill us in.
At least as far as the Chinese languages go, classifiers are optional
and aren't prevalent like gender marking in IE languages is. They are
probably much better understood as units of counting rather than gender,
and are closer to words like "pair", "dozen", or "pound" (as in, a pound
of fish) in English, than to a gender-like system.


> One thing is that a noun can't exist without gender, no more than
> a human can exist without gender: it's either one or the other.
> Nouns that take classifiers can, and can, in fact, sometimes take
> different ones in different situations.
[...]

That's right. At least in the Chinese languages, classifiers can usually
be omitted, and if not, a circumlocution that doesn't need a classifier
usually exists. Also, the classifiers may be used on their own once
their referent has been established, which is unlike any gender system I
know of (I don't know of any gender affixes that may detach from the
noun and appear in isolation).

Some nouns may also be used in ways analogous to the classifiers, such
as "bowl" in "a bowl of soup" (e.g., _i1 wan3 tang1_), etc.. Perhaps the
classifiers are remnants of ancient nouns.


T

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