Re: gender: animate and inanimate

J Matthew Pearson:

> Algonquian languages (Cree, Ojibwe, etc.) have animacy based
> gender systems.  Like Indo-European sex-based systems, though,
> there's a certain amount of idiosyncrasy in how nouns are
> assigned to classes.  Some semantically inanimate objects go in
> the animacy class, and vice versa.
The Dravidian languages, or at least Tamil, have animate-inanimate gender
distinction but inanimate could be assigned to some animals, people and even
gods.  I can't remember any examples of either gender.

Danny Boy


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