[lojban] Re: semantic category vs. gender

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

Oh yeah, and the largest mountain in Africa is classified as a small thing in Swahili
(ki-lima-njaro, little hill Njaro).

--- John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> 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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> 



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