[lojban] Re: semantic category vs. gender

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.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
> 



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