Subject: RE: [lojban] Lojban gender (was: RE: [conculture] Re: Temples in Louisianne

From: "Craig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 12:36:32 -0500

>> In the same article, Quine shows us that grammatical gender has its uses
>> He gives the English sentence:
>>
>> He removed the manuscript from the briefcase and cast it into the sea
>>
>> What was cast into the sea, the manuscript or the briefcase? We don't
know
>> In French, the difference in gender leaves no doubt:
>>
>> Il retira le manuscrit de la serviette et le (la) jeta dans le mer
>>
>> "le" means "le manuscrit" and "la" means "la serviette" without ambiguity
>> Of course it's annoying that French (and even more so, German) genders
have
>> to be learned one by one. In Lojban, we have 17 genders, with a
>> pronoun suitable to each: the b-gender, the d-gender, the f-gender,
>> and so on

>Unusually, though, "le xunre cukta", "the red (xunre) book (cukta)",
>takes the gender not of the head (c-gender) but of the modifier
>(x-gender), though if the modifier is postposed, "le cukta co xunre",
>it takes the gender of the head.

I'm not sure these are real genders - they use the same article(s), for
instance, and adjectives don't have to agree with them.