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Re: Relative Genders-Comments

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Saturday, March 20, 1999, 16:29
FFlores wrote:
> As for the shape-referents: there are some Native American languages (*) > (for example, Nootka) which indeed use different genders (or classes) > for objects according to their shape and size. I don't know whether > or not to call these "genders", but I understand that these class > markers are compulsory.
I'm not sure if these are genders, but I think that they are. The Bantu langs have something similar, some of the genders depend on the shape of the object. They are genders because they affect other words in the sentence, in the case of the Bantu langs, adjectives and verbs agree with the gender. -- "It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father was hanged." - Irish proverb http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-name: NikTailor