Re: Genders (Forgive me for this :) )

On Sun, 9 Jan 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Patrick Dunn wrote:
> > Well, I'm not a linguist, but I seem to recall my OE teacher mentioning
> > that when French and OE (both of which are gendered) met, the genders
> > didn't always agree so they were often dropped.
>
> No.  French had little influence on English grammar.  Besides which,
> IIRC, some form of gender survived into the late Middle English period,
> and number agreement on adjectives survived until near the very end,
> FWIR.
>
Shows how well I listened in Old English.  :)  I paid closer attention to
Beowulf, and it has paid off:  Beowulf is one of the items on the comps
reading list.  Won't it impress those gritty old professors when I quote
from it in OE?  :)