Re: Genders (was Re: Láadan and woman's speak_

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> Robert Hailman wrote:
> > Quite possible, but what I want to know is what would cause a gender
> > system to change so dramatically.
>
> I'm picturing a gender system evolving in a language that had no gender
> system.
>
Right, but since there is a factor of chance involved, since we don't
know exactly what inspires a language to develop gender, or lose it,
what are the odds a language would lose one gender system and gain
another?

> > I also find it doubtful that a culture would adopt a new gender system
> > just because they couldn't understand what gave nouns their gender under
> > the old ones, more likely that would cause them to drop gender almost
> > entirely.
>
> Any feature of language can evolve from the absence, a caseless language
> can develop cases, and a genderless language can evolve gender.  Exactly
> where gender comes from isn't completely agreed-upon, but probably
> evolves from classifiers.  So, my idea was a language that had no gender
> (possibly having lost another gender system in the past) developed a
> gender system based upon things like electric/non-electric.
>
It's always possible, but what I want to know is whether it's likely or
not. I've never doubted whether such a system could form, I'm just
saying that it's improbable and if a language had a gender system like
that, I'd be more inclined to think it was consiously added by
someone...

--
Robert