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Re: USAGE: What gender is _Wikipedia_ in German?

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpjonsson@...>
Date:Monday, July 31, 2006, 13:35
Kalle Bergman skrev:
>>What gender is _Wikipedia_ in German? > > > Okay, not an answer to your question, and tangential > to the subject, but... what gender is "wikipedia" in > swedish? "En wikipedia", "ett wikipedia"... it's > neither, right, because "wikipedia" is a proper name? >
I definitely agree with you and Andreas that _Wikipedia_ is a proper name in Swedish. It probably is in German too, but IIANM proper names can have any gender in German, and (of this I'm sure) you *need* to know what gender a name has in order to choose the right anaphoric forms when referring to it.
> (Begin rant) > > Makes me think of my dad's dialect, which has a > special set of clitics used with names of people, when > those names are used to refer to a person by that > name. (So, for instance, you use the clitic when > saying things like "I met Ove yesterday", but not when > saying "His name is Ove", because in the latter case, > "Ove" refers to the name itself, rather than to > someone called "Ove"). The clitics were en-/n- in the > case of men, and a- in the case of women, so you got > things like: > > Jag såg n'Ove > I saw Ove > > And > > Jag såg a'Karin > I saw Karin > > I think it's an interesting feature.
It is. These forms come from the old pronoun _hinn (m), hin (f), hitt (n)_ which basically meant (and still means in Icelandic, Faroese and Norwegian) roughly the same as, and is cognate to, German _jener_, i.e. basically 'the other one', but could also be used as a demonstrative and relative pronoun: as you perhaps know the Scandinavian postposed definite article also derives from _hinn_ used enclitically, and its forms were often written without _h-_ in Old Norse. In the function you describe they were preposed to a person's name when referring to that person -- much as the definite article can be in German and always is in Greek -- and again with great phonetic attrition due to being clitic. I wonder if the feminine form _a_ comes from the accusative singular feminine _hina_ or from the nominative _hin_ with a soundchange _in > i~ > E~ > a~_. The fact that many Scandinavian dialects have enclitic object pronun forms _'en (m), 'na (f), -et (n)_ (among them *my* dad's dialect! :-) talks for the accusative origin, but the fact that the feminine singular and neuter plural article both develop into _-a < -in_ speaks for the nasalization and lowering of _hin_ hypothesis. BTW my dad used to joke about the Vestrogothian and Bahusian translation of the German paradigm _sie, ihrer, ihr, sie_ which went _hu, henneres, ôtna, hu_ -- note how the nominative stands in for the old accusative when stressed: the _-na_ form -- in this case deriving from the accusative _hana_ of the personal pronoun _hun/hon_ wasn't stressable! Also note the absence of a reflex of the old dative _henni_ which has given the obliq1ue case in standard Swedish!
> /Kalle B > > --- Benct Philip Jonsson <bpjonsson@...> skrev: > > >>Well, the subject line says it all: >>What gender is _Wikipedia_ in German? >>Sure _paidía_ is feminine in Greek, but >>one can never be sure. It might even be >>neuter plural! ;-) >>-- >> >>/BP 8^)> >>-- >>Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se >> >> Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! >> >>(Tacitus) >> >>I'm afraid the current situation in the Eastern >>Mediterranean forces me to reinstate this >>signature... >> > > > >
-- /BP 8^)> -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! (Tacitus) I'm afraid the current situation in the Eastern Mediterranean forces me to reinstate this signature...

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Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>