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Re: [lojban] semantic category vs. gender
- To: lojban-list@lojban.org
- Subject: Re: [lojban] semantic category vs. gender
- From: John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>
- Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 05:39:13 -0800 (PST)
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- Sender: nobody <nobody@digitalkingdom.org>
And, of course, the countless cases that cut against the apparent semantic classes: ships are
feminine in English, farmers and sailors are feminine in Latin, all small/young/dear things are
neuter in German, and so on.
--- MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com wrote:
> In a message dated 11/23/2006 4:23:18 AM Central Standard Time,
> ecartis@digitalkingdom.org writes:
>
>
> > Gender in language IS a form of semantic classifier, having only 1 or 2
> > or 3 categories in Indo-European languages (and thus being rather
> > useless most of the time, but apparently useful enough that most IE
> > languages have those categories), but having larger numbers of
> > genders/categories in other languages.
> >
> > lojbab
> >
>
> I doubt that gender in European languages is really a semantic category,
> beyond the obvious few words relating directly to sexual entities.
>
> stevo
>