The Decline and Fall of the Latin Neuter(dannybate.com)
dannybate.com
The Decline and Fall of the Latin Neuter
https://dannybate.com/2021/03/15/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-latin-neuter/
14 comments
I didn't downvote, but if it's being downvoted, it's probably because the article does mention "lo", although only in the context of Asturian, not standard Spanish.
> Distinct but unofficial Romance languages like [...] Asturian (spoken in Asturias, a part of Spain) seem to have definite articles (equivalent to English the) for three genders, not two. Asturian has el for masculine nouns, la for feminine and lo for those nouns termed ‘neuter’. [...] The key question is whether these supposed neuter definite articles demonstrate the existence of a neuter gender. Again, sadly, the answer is no. These definite articles and the nouns they are used with (no matter what their origins) seem not to constitute a neuter gender, but rather to signify that the noun is something abstract or a physical mass – that is, an indivisible substance, like water or gold. [...] Why does this contradict the existence of a neuter gender? Because we find this “mass gender” (Harmon 2007) used with nouns that were not neuter in Latin, and because nouns in these languages can appear both with and without the feature, according to whether they have a mass meaning or not. This is therefore not a grammatical feature on the same level as the masculine and feminine genders; instead, the mass gender is a feature of nouns determined by semantics – to what sort of thing the noun refers.
If you wanted to talk about "lo" in standard Spanish, it would make more sense to start from the starting point of what's discussed in the article -- e.g., "The 'lo' construction actually exists in standard Spanish as well, although it's more restricted than in Asturian; rather than being used with any mass noun, it's used to mean..."
> Distinct but unofficial Romance languages like [...] Asturian (spoken in Asturias, a part of Spain) seem to have definite articles (equivalent to English the) for three genders, not two. Asturian has el for masculine nouns, la for feminine and lo for those nouns termed ‘neuter’. [...] The key question is whether these supposed neuter definite articles demonstrate the existence of a neuter gender. Again, sadly, the answer is no. These definite articles and the nouns they are used with (no matter what their origins) seem not to constitute a neuter gender, but rather to signify that the noun is something abstract or a physical mass – that is, an indivisible substance, like water or gold. [...] Why does this contradict the existence of a neuter gender? Because we find this “mass gender” (Harmon 2007) used with nouns that were not neuter in Latin, and because nouns in these languages can appear both with and without the feature, according to whether they have a mass meaning or not. This is therefore not a grammatical feature on the same level as the masculine and feminine genders; instead, the mass gender is a feature of nouns determined by semantics – to what sort of thing the noun refers.
If you wanted to talk about "lo" in standard Spanish, it would make more sense to start from the starting point of what's discussed in the article -- e.g., "The 'lo' construction actually exists in standard Spanish as well, although it's more restricted than in Asturian; rather than being used with any mass noun, it's used to mean..."
You can see the same thing in Russian and other slavic languages, for example, where you can use "-о" to convert an adjective into concept noun (of always neuter gender). For example, "добрый" (masculine adjective "good)" => "добро" (neuter noun "the good").
What would those sound like phonetically for those of us that can't read cryllic?
You can copy and paste unfamiliar words (or words in unfamiliar languages) into Google Translate and hit the speaker button to get a pronunciation.
Like Greek alphabet from math class except for the ы closest to a short i. dobry, dobro
In English something like DO-BREE and DO-BROH (the latter ending with "o" in "rocket")
> My understanding is this derives from the Latin neuter as well.
Does it? Spanish articles derive from Latin ille / illa / illud ["that", as contrasted with "this"]. The neuter (nominative) form is illud. It is not obvious how this would have resulted in the form lo. Wiktionary suggests ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lo#Spanish ) that it derives from the masculine form illum, which makes much more phonological sense. (-m was already so weak in Latin that a syllable ending in -m completely disappeared when followed by a vowel.)
Does it? Spanish articles derive from Latin ille / illa / illud ["that", as contrasted with "this"]. The neuter (nominative) form is illud. It is not obvious how this would have resulted in the form lo. Wiktionary suggests ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lo#Spanish ) that it derives from the masculine form illum, which makes much more phonological sense. (-m was already so weak in Latin that a syllable ending in -m completely disappeared when followed by a vowel.)
The etymology you linked actually says something different:
> From a Vulgar Latin *lo, *illu. Masculine pronoun from Latin illum, singular masculine accusative of ille. Neuter article and pronoun form from Latin illud, neuter of ille. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lo#Spanish
That means some uses of "lo" are derived from masculine ille while others are indeed from neuter illud. To answer your phonological uncertainty, the entry shows derivation from illud > *illu > lo.
> From a Vulgar Latin *lo, *illu. Masculine pronoun from Latin illum, singular masculine accusative of ille. Neuter article and pronoun form from Latin illud, neuter of ille. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lo#Spanish
That means some uses of "lo" are derived from masculine ille while others are indeed from neuter illud. To answer your phonological uncertainty, the entry shows derivation from illud > *illu > lo.
I suspect it's because it struck some as the "but what about" that is a trope here. The "i can't believe they didn't mention this thing I know" sorta shtick that us tech ppl love to do :)
Interesting. I didn't mean it as a gotcha, just another example of the phenomenon under discussion. Maybe the "surprised the article didn't mention" formulation is not the way to go.
Oh totally, i didn't read it as that either, but when i went looking (bc you mentioned), i immediately noticed it :)
I agree that avoiding "i am surprised" generally works well for me, as i find ppl can be prickly toward a subtle one-ups-manship vibe. Personally, I often try to find an and-yes angle before adding something I know (esp negating), and it seems like it works alright :)
Anyhow, I appreciate how humble and thoughtful you seem, in making sense of this wierd "up/down vote" system we're compelled to sift meaning from in digital spaces heh
I agree that avoiding "i am surprised" generally works well for me, as i find ppl can be prickly toward a subtle one-ups-manship vibe. Personally, I often try to find an and-yes angle before adding something I know (esp negating), and it seems like it works alright :)
Anyhow, I appreciate how humble and thoughtful you seem, in making sense of this wierd "up/down vote" system we're compelled to sift meaning from in digital spaces heh
I can't down-vote, so I don't know. But what's the significance of that example? It's one instance of many remnants of the Latin neuter in modern languages.
Yeah okay, so I guess it's of zero interest to anybody who clicked on an article about the Latin neuter. Thanks for the feedback.
No, my feedback is that it's not clear what you meant. I guess I wasn't very clear either.
Sorry for the sarcasm. I just meant it as one additional data point on the subject of the article.
Not to get too off topic, but I got snippy because I just don't understand what standards comments are sometimes held to. Mine may not have been the most interesting comment in the world, but when I go to the trouble of making what I think is a reasonable contribution to the discussion, and then some people decide it's so bad I should do karmic penance, it hurts my feelings. I apologize once again for taking it out on you.
Not to get too off topic, but I got snippy because I just don't understand what standards comments are sometimes held to. Mine may not have been the most interesting comment in the world, but when I go to the trouble of making what I think is a reasonable contribution to the discussion, and then some people decide it's so bad I should do karmic penance, it hurts my feelings. I apologize once again for taking it out on you.
I've learned that there's an element of randomness and momentum, and sometimes you just get a raw deal. What still kills me is when some post gets downvoted and someone replies "you're getting downvoted but actually that's a good post!" and they get upvoted.
It's not as though you can trade the upvotes for prizes anyway.
It's not as though you can trade the upvotes for prizes anyway.
It's karmic roulette - The rules are made up, and the points don't matter :-)
I was wondering the same thing. I've been told that in Spanish, you use the neuter when you don't know what the correct gender for something should be. As in:
"Te deseo lo mejor"
"I want the best for you"
In that phrase, the speaker doesn't know what gender "the best" is, so neuter is used.
"Te deseo lo mejor"
"I want the best for you"
In that phrase, the speaker doesn't know what gender "the best" is, so neuter is used.
Yeah no idea why you're getting down voted. Lo is gender neutral, and can be used with nouns of either gender. However it is primarily used in conjunction with adjectives, not so much nouns.
while the article is factually incorrect when claiming that Spanish has no neutral gender at all.
It's also true that "lo" is seldom used in Spanish and there are almost no neutral nouns (like in german).
It's also true that "lo" is seldom used in Spanish and there are almost no neutral nouns (like in german).
I think the author would make the same argument that they did in reference to Romanian neuter:
> The issue is that these nouns do not behave like a fully-fledged gender. Importantly, there are no dedicated neuter endings for adjectives; instead, when a Romanian ‘neuter’ noun combines with an adjective, that adjective will be either masculine or feminine.
That is, “lo” is a remnant of the neuter but because it is accompanied by a masculine adjective (there is no such thing as a neuter adjective), it does not constitute a true gender.
> The issue is that these nouns do not behave like a fully-fledged gender. Importantly, there are no dedicated neuter endings for adjectives; instead, when a Romanian ‘neuter’ noun combines with an adjective, that adjective will be either masculine or feminine.
That is, “lo” is a remnant of the neuter but because it is accompanied by a masculine adjective (there is no such thing as a neuter adjective), it does not constitute a true gender.
No, it is correct that there are no neuter nouns in Spanish. That’s all it says. And you are very incorrect about “lo”. You can’t read a page of Spanish without encountering it several times.
but the vast majority of those "lo" would be the male article not the neuter.
[deleted]
>The neuter gender is very old indeed, arguably older than the other two genders. Through the systematic comparison of ancient languages, we believe that Proto-Indo-European, in its oldest reconstructable state, had only two gender-like categories for its nouns: animate and inanimate (that is, for moving and not-moving things). It was the inanimate that became the neuter gender in its descendant languages, while the animate would later split into two further genders. This is the system that Latin inherited.
That is super interesting to me. But I wonder how they defined moving versus non-moving things? At first I was thinking moving meant living things like animals, but a car moves. Of course, they didn't have cars/trains/etc. back then. But they did have boats (probably). Are boats moving or non-moving? And there are certain animals that don't ever move (especially in the oceans). Would they be moving or non-moving?
That is super interesting to me. But I wonder how they defined moving versus non-moving things? At first I was thinking moving meant living things like animals, but a car moves. Of course, they didn't have cars/trains/etc. back then. But they did have boats (probably). Are boats moving or non-moving? And there are certain animals that don't ever move (especially in the oceans). Would they be moving or non-moving?
I'm not sure that moving versus not moving is the right dichotomy, despite what the article says. "Animate" itself comes from the proto IE root *ani- meaning "to breathe" so it could refer to things perceived of at the time as breathing, which includes most larger animals.
But as others have noted, even in ancient times, the relationship between the gender of the word and the thing it represented in the real world was highly fossilized and often arbitrary outside of personal pronouns and a few animal names of agricultural importance (cow vs. bull).
But as others have noted, even in ancient times, the relationship between the gender of the word and the thing it represented in the real world was highly fossilized and often arbitrary outside of personal pronouns and a few animal names of agricultural importance (cow vs. bull).
Yes, the expressions “moving” – “not-moving” are rather misleading.
The actual distinction according to this theory (or to my favourite flavour of this theory) was: “able to act willfully” – “unable to act willfully”. The distinction was quite logical. Cp.:
(A) “Susan runs down the hill.”
(B) “Water runs down the hill.”
(C) “Susan drinks water.”
A speaker of Proto-Indo-European might have said, learning English: “This is strange – as if these were somehow the same acts or events. ‘Susan runs’, OK, but water does not run – it is dragged down. It does not act, something happens to it.” (And then the PIE-speaker might have speculated that anglophone people have an animistic worldview or so.)
In PIE the subject of a sentence seems to have denoted an actual agens; and there seems to have been a class of nouns for things unable to act willfully, hence unable to be the subject. So that the subject in (A) and (C) would have been a subject in the nominative, denoting an agens, whereas in (B) “water” would not have been seen as subject; the sentence would have been constructed differently and “water” would have been put in the same case as “water” in (C).
Because all over the old IE languages, neuter nouns have the same form for the nominative and the accusative, and it seems to have been rather the form for the accusative: Cp.
Latin masc. nom. sg. ‑us
Latin masc. acc. sg. ‑um
Latin neutr. nom. sg. ‑um
Latin neutr. acc. sg. ‑um
There is further evidence, too.
In principle, the distinction was quite logical, but its application is difficult and gets easily messed up over time until the old semantic distinction has become a mere formal one.
The actual distinction according to this theory (or to my favourite flavour of this theory) was: “able to act willfully” – “unable to act willfully”. The distinction was quite logical. Cp.:
(A) “Susan runs down the hill.”
(B) “Water runs down the hill.”
(C) “Susan drinks water.”
A speaker of Proto-Indo-European might have said, learning English: “This is strange – as if these were somehow the same acts or events. ‘Susan runs’, OK, but water does not run – it is dragged down. It does not act, something happens to it.” (And then the PIE-speaker might have speculated that anglophone people have an animistic worldview or so.)
In PIE the subject of a sentence seems to have denoted an actual agens; and there seems to have been a class of nouns for things unable to act willfully, hence unable to be the subject. So that the subject in (A) and (C) would have been a subject in the nominative, denoting an agens, whereas in (B) “water” would not have been seen as subject; the sentence would have been constructed differently and “water” would have been put in the same case as “water” in (C).
Because all over the old IE languages, neuter nouns have the same form for the nominative and the accusative, and it seems to have been rather the form for the accusative: Cp.
Latin masc. nom. sg. ‑us
Latin masc. acc. sg. ‑um
Latin neutr. nom. sg. ‑um
Latin neutr. acc. sg. ‑um
There is further evidence, too.
In principle, the distinction was quite logical, but its application is difficult and gets easily messed up over time until the old semantic distinction has become a mere formal one.
> all over the old IE languages, neuter nouns have the same form for the nominative and the accusative
The lack of distinction between neuter nominative and neuter accusative is not just true of nouns in old IE languages. It's true of all grammatical categories in virtually all modern IE languages too (with some very obscure exceptions). Consider German articles der/den vs. das/das. Or English pronouns she/her vs. it/it.
More info: https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/18/accusative-equa...
https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/9105/why-do-...
Apparently one of the obscure exceptions is the Russian word оно - but they are indeed quite rare.
The lack of distinction between neuter nominative and neuter accusative is not just true of nouns in old IE languages. It's true of all grammatical categories in virtually all modern IE languages too (with some very obscure exceptions). Consider German articles der/den vs. das/das. Or English pronouns she/her vs. it/it.
More info: https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/18/accusative-equa...
https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/9105/why-do-...
Apparently one of the obscure exceptions is the Russian word оно - but they are indeed quite rare.
Correct: According to the theory outlined above, no neutral form could have been a PIE nominative, because the PIE nominative would have been marked willfully acting entities. So the root cause would have been the distinction made for nouns (“can willfully act” – “cannot willfully act”), and this must affect all words with noun-agreement (i.e. adj., det.) or words substituting, deputizing nouns (i.e. pronouns).
It is wonderful that this formerly semantic system (if the theory is correct) has left its formal trace over millennia and a range of thousands of miles.
Such preservation was likely in so far as otherwise a new suffix-inflectional distinction had to be introduced in order to distinguish the nominative neuter from the accusative neuter; and in the history of the IE languages, suffix-inflectional distinctions are rather removed than built.
It is wonderful that this formerly semantic system (if the theory is correct) has left its formal trace over millennia and a range of thousands of miles.
Such preservation was likely in so far as otherwise a new suffix-inflectional distinction had to be introduced in order to distinguish the nominative neuter from the accusative neuter; and in the history of the IE languages, suffix-inflectional distinctions are rather removed than built.
so the origin of masculine feminine in IE is weird. The issue is that Hittite, the oldest attested IE language has two genders animate and inanimate. These are very very conventional. The sea Aruna is animate, but a grindstone is inanimate! Tocharian also has evidence of the animate inanimate split, but tocharian is such a mess no one knows what to make of it. All other IE language families (besides the weirdos like Armenian) have or had 3 genders.
The question is the relationship between Hittite and the rest of IE. Most indoeuropeanists think Hittite (and maybe tocharian) split before the rest of the IE languages, which after the split developed gender and other things that Hittite lacks, before splitting in turn. That said, it’s possible that masculine and feminine merged in Hittite, and the trigender system came first.
> The sea Aruna is animate, but a grindstone is inanimate!
Is this supposed to be weird? A grindstone won't do anything unless you put considerable effort into making it move. But you can go look at the sea and watch it constantly crashing into the shore, to say nothing of rising and falling with the tides.
Is this supposed to be weird? A grindstone won't do anything unless you put considerable effort into making it move. But you can go look at the sea and watch it constantly crashing into the shore, to say nothing of rising and falling with the tides.
Farsi has hints of this. I don't think any linguist would argue that Farsi is a gendered language (it does not even have gendered pronouns), but there are two instances where one could argue remnants of an animate/inanimate gender system remains:
1. Farsi has two suffixes that make a noun plural (I am going to write things semi-phonetically): huh and un. Huh can be used for absolutely everything. Un can only be used for living things, e.g.: derakht-un (trees), daneshamouz-un (students), baradar-un (brothers, and its similarity to brethren has caught my eye).
2. You can use third person singular verb conjugation for third person plural subjects, but only if the subject is non-living.
1. Farsi has two suffixes that make a noun plural (I am going to write things semi-phonetically): huh and un. Huh can be used for absolutely everything. Un can only be used for living things, e.g.: derakht-un (trees), daneshamouz-un (students), baradar-un (brothers, and its similarity to brethren has caught my eye).
2. You can use third person singular verb conjugation for third person plural subjects, but only if the subject is non-living.
> You can use third person singular verb conjugation for third person plural subjects, but only if the subject is non-living.
This does seem likely to be a relic of something in the past, since nearly the same thing is true in classical Greek - neuter plural subjects agree with singular verbs, not plural verbs. (You weren't clear about whether singular conjugation is required for nonliving subjects in Farsi. I believe singular agreement for neuter plural subjects is mandatory in Greek.)
This does seem likely to be a relic of something in the past, since nearly the same thing is true in classical Greek - neuter plural subjects agree with singular verbs, not plural verbs. (You weren't clear about whether singular conjugation is required for nonliving subjects in Farsi. I believe singular agreement for neuter plural subjects is mandatory in Greek.)
Only Attiki syntax in Ancient Greek had this as a special form I believe and it was not limited to inanimate subjects. The classic example of this is τα παιδία παίζει , the children are playing.
I didn't mean to say it was limited to inanimate subjects. It's for neuter subjects. But we've been talking about a relationship between Indo-European neuter gender and inanimacy, so this still seems plausibly related.
This is a new development in farsi. ha is from the middle person iha, which ultimately derives from the indo-iranian plus -s (same as in english). s->h is characteristic of indo iranian in general and iranian in particular. an in middle person (which comes from another indo-iranian plural an) means this particular thing in middle person. In farsi this converted into general vs. living.
Japanese has this distinction of animate/inanimate although I don't think(?) it's connected in any way to Proto-Indo-European. Anyway in that language it's subtle and weird. Living humans and animals are animate and paperclips are inanimate. Dead bodies - inanimate - unless you're talking respectfully about a deceased relative. Dolls are inanimate sometimes, but I've also seen them use the animate version (haunted dolls?). Camels can, according to [1], be either depending on whether you look at them as an animal or a mode of transport.
[1] https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/59531
[1] https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/59531
The grammatical gender of nouns is mostly arbitrary. A famous example is "key", which is feminine in Italian and Spanish but masculine in German. This is also the case in Latin with its neuter. My Latin is very rusty, but IIRC from high school, there are a lot of nouns that refer to "neuter" things, but are actually masculine or feminine, for example "vis" (= strength) is feminine.
A lot of grammar is not arbitrary but just has a very rich history that is not apparent and sometimes not even traceable anymore.
Schlüssel basically is a combination of schließen (close) and the ending -el. Here this is the third meaning of -el listed on wiktionary: "suffix in agent and instrumental nouns". (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-el#German). As far as I can see all of the words that have this version of the -el suffix are masculine.
Languages are full of those rules that just are not apparent anymore, because they are so deeply layered and often apply to only a few words that they are not useful to learn.
Schlüssel basically is a combination of schließen (close) and the ending -el. Here this is the third meaning of -el listed on wiktionary: "suffix in agent and instrumental nouns". (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-el#German). As far as I can see all of the words that have this version of the -el suffix are masculine.
Languages are full of those rules that just are not apparent anymore, because they are so deeply layered and often apply to only a few words that they are not useful to learn.
well noun gender does seem disconnected from the nature of the thing only in modern languages, IMO. because of how each word evolved. in antique languages, grammatical gender is closely tied to the word's morphology, especially to the word's ending in Latin. in essence there is not really gender in languages, just some group of nouns which behaves very grammatically similarly. they just happened to be suspiciously congruent to the genders in words indicating things which do have gender in those languages which were studied when linguists invented the term of grammatical gender.
"Key" in Italian and Spanish comes more or less directly from Latin 'clavis' (fem), I guess, they are being romance languages; in German however it may have a different root (aber https://www.dwds.de/wb/Schl%C3%BCssel#etymwb-1 says something about Latin origin too). Most likely its form was more similar to other masculine words when its gender stabilized.
The arbitrarity is among naturally gender-less things, as I observed. People, professions, animals have the "right" grammatical gender overwhelmingly. There was also a process in Romance languages. Neuter words tended to become masculine because many of them behaves more like masc than fem in most cases. thats why some woman body parts are grammatically masculine.
"Key" in Italian and Spanish comes more or less directly from Latin 'clavis' (fem), I guess, they are being romance languages; in German however it may have a different root (aber https://www.dwds.de/wb/Schl%C3%BCssel#etymwb-1 says something about Latin origin too). Most likely its form was more similar to other masculine words when its gender stabilized.
The arbitrarity is among naturally gender-less things, as I observed. People, professions, animals have the "right" grammatical gender overwhelmingly. There was also a process in Romance languages. Neuter words tended to become masculine because many of them behaves more like masc than fem in most cases. thats why some woman body parts are grammatically masculine.
> aber https://www.dwds.de/wb/Schl%C3%BCssel#etymwb-1 says something about Latin origin too)
It doesn't say that "Schlüssel" has a Latin origin (see also https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Schl%C3%BCssel for an etymology). It says that some terms related to Latin "clavis" have corresponding German terms formed by somewhat analogous derivation from "Schlüssel". Most prominently "Schlüsselbein", literally "key bone", from "clavicula" (clavicle).
It doesn't say that "Schlüssel" has a Latin origin (see also https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Schl%C3%BCssel for an etymology). It says that some terms related to Latin "clavis" have corresponding German terms formed by somewhat analogous derivation from "Schlüssel". Most prominently "Schlüsselbein", literally "key bone", from "clavicula" (clavicle).
danke for the interpretation. i hoped someone clarifies it for me :)
Some languages do have non arbitrators genders. In Dravidian languages male and female nouns usually only refer to humans. In one dravian language, kvi, the feminine was lost and so the only masculine things were adult human males, leading to amusing fact that early ethnographers didn’t realize a major god was actually a goddess!
If you take die Klaviatur you have it female in german as well. It's just that Schlüssel is of different semantic origin compared to clave
Klaviatur is feminine not because of the etymology of the root, but rather because of the ending -tur.
German will raise you the grammatically neuter “Mädchen”, meaning girl or maiden.
I’m reminded of the Mark Twain essay, The Awful German Language where he says:
“In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl.”
Despite its age the essay* is well worth a read for native English speakers struggling to learn German.
* https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html
“In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl.”
Despite its age the essay* is well worth a read for native English speakers struggling to learn German.
* https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html
Mark Twain was making fun - the essay isn't supposed to be taken seriously.
His conclusion would also be wrong, since the grammatical gender has nothing to do with he biological gender - it's the gender assigned to all diminutive forms, regardless of grammatical gender.
E.g. "der Vater" (the father) becomes "das Väterchen" just as well without loosing his proverbial balls in the process.
His conclusion would also be wrong, since the grammatical gender has nothing to do with he biological gender - it's the gender assigned to all diminutive forms, regardless of grammatical gender.
E.g. "der Vater" (the father) becomes "das Väterchen" just as well without loosing his proverbial balls in the process.
Well yes - it's clearly a joke? It seems so obvious to me that I didn't think it needed to be pointed out when I quoted it.
That's because of a systematic rule that all words ending in the "chen" morpheme are neuter.
To expand on that: -chen is usually indicating a diminutive form of another word. Some examples (also observe how that affects the vowel in the first syllable):
die Wurst, das Würstchen (the sausage, the small sausage)
der Mann, das Männchen (the man, the little man)
der Becher, das Becherchen (the cup, the small cup; this is an example in which the first vowel is phonetically close enough to the following "e" in "-chen" that no vowel change occurs (we do not even have umlauts for "i" or "e" in german)).
die Wurst, das Würstchen (the sausage, the small sausage)
der Mann, das Männchen (the man, the little man)
der Becher, das Becherchen (the cup, the small cup; this is an example in which the first vowel is phonetically close enough to the following "e" in "-chen" that no vowel change occurs (we do not even have umlauts for "i" or "e" in german)).
Sure, there's a certain logic to it.
I just think it's an unimpeachable example of the disconnect between biological and grammatical gender.
I just think it's an unimpeachable example of the disconnect between biological and grammatical gender.
“mostly arbitrary”
I’ll say: el clítoris.
I’ll say: el clítoris.
Latin has mentula and verpa, both feminine words referring to a male appendage.
Giacomo Cassanova had a bit on this:
“When asked by an English poet who was at the table to read the ancient couplet Discite grammatici cur mascula nomina cunnus/ Et cur femineum mentula nomen habet [Teach us, grammarians, why vagina (cunnus) is a masculine noun/ And why penis (mentula) is feminine], Giacomo answered it with a witty pentameter of his own invention: Disce quod a domino nomina servus habet [It is because the slave always takes the name of his master].”
“When asked by an English poet who was at the table to read the ancient couplet Discite grammatici cur mascula nomina cunnus/ Et cur femineum mentula nomen habet [Teach us, grammarians, why vagina (cunnus) is a masculine noun/ And why penis (mentula) is feminine], Giacomo answered it with a witty pentameter of his own invention: Disce quod a domino nomina servus habet [It is because the slave always takes the name of his master].”
C'mon, we all know it's an introverted dick.
> I wonder how they defined moving versus non-moving things?
Their concept of "moving things" was what is often translated as "self-movers" in translations of works like those of Aristotle. The idea was that they were things that could move without anything else controlling them. Cars and boats don't move unless humans are controlling them. But animals do.
Their concept of "moving things" was what is often translated as "self-movers" in translations of works like those of Aristotle. The idea was that they were things that could move without anything else controlling them. Cars and boats don't move unless humans are controlling them. But animals do.
You may be interested to know that other languages do distinguish animacy/inanimacy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animacy
It isn’t always equivalent to gender though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animacy
It isn’t always equivalent to gender though.
i'd categorize boat as inanimated. my experience is that "moving" means self-moving in this context. also languages are generally fuzzy on edge cases. a static sea creature may be inanimated in grammatical sense eventhough it's live. it depends on what it the most resembles to to the people who first name it: does it look like more of a rock or more of a snail? "oh, it turned out that rock-like thing is a snail something in a hard shell? never mind everyone call it sea-rock by now."
Germanic languages (with their retained neutral gender) are probably a good place to start looking at this.
I found this passage really provocative as well! It got me wondering what sort of conceptualization and distinction these cultures and early humans had around gender when they didn't see gender as the original way to split themselves.
It got me thinking about what sort of language a descendent of bonobos might develop, and even whether proto humans conceived of gender in a more fluid way during co-evolution of language and our biology that allowed for language. Wondering if there's anything here like the original sort of QWERTY entrenchment
It got me thinking about what sort of language a descendent of bonobos might develop, and even whether proto humans conceived of gender in a more fluid way during co-evolution of language and our biology that allowed for language. Wondering if there's anything here like the original sort of QWERTY entrenchment
Why would they need to "split themselves"? What's good about creating divisions for divisions' sake? It's certainly not necessary for human languages to have gender distinctions.
There are often stabilities in dualities, and specifically in having two strategies. "Segment" themselves was perhaps a better term, but two segments is often what I'm personally interested in
Feel free to investigate stability theory and specifically duality in dynamical systems (living cells themselves are dynamical systems, and I would venture human society could also be described as one)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Moshe-Farjoun/publicati...
http://home.eng.iastate.edu/~ugvaidya/papers/Vaidya_Allerton...
Feel free to investigate stability theory and specifically duality in dynamical systems (living cells themselves are dynamical systems, and I would venture human society could also be described as one)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Moshe-Farjoun/publicati...
http://home.eng.iastate.edu/~ugvaidya/papers/Vaidya_Allerton...
German also has the neuter (das/es). Funny fact in some dialects of German people use the neuter with Women names :-)
German is not a romance language yet had heavy influences from Latin. The neuter "das" is alive and kicking, no sign whatsoever of disappearance.
It's das Haus (the house), das Kind (the child)
It's das Haus (the house), das Kind (the child)
Presumably, neutrum in Germanic languages comes from Proto-Indoeuropean, just like in Slavic languages or indeed Latin itself. Is there any reason to believe that it came to modern German by way of Latin?
And, interestingly, das Mädchen (the girl).
This is because it is a diminutive, cf. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutiv#Grammatisches_Geschl...
German is from another language family, I doubt that neuter was introduced from Latin
English native speaker here (en_GB!) However, I have studied Latin, both classical: "Cicero sic in omnibus, Brutus aderat." and medieval: Erasmus, as he toddled around Europe, drank nearly as much red wine as I do. I've also failed French and German O levels (old UK exam at age 15.)
So, Latin generally had M, F and N. Modern French (Romance language du jour) ostensibly has M and F. Modern Germanic languages have .... OK:
- German M,F,N. - English - nouns don't have a gender - Dutch - I don't know - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_Dutch_grammar could be complicated - I've run out of language knowledge here
So that was scientific.
The article notes that proto-indo-european only had animate and inanimate and that is not the same as gender. Animate here is "alive". A human and a tree are animate but a rock is inanimate. Rocks (outside of Terry Pratchett books do not procreate).
So, Latin generally had M, F and N. Modern French (Romance language du jour) ostensibly has M and F. Modern Germanic languages have .... OK:
- German M,F,N. - English - nouns don't have a gender - Dutch - I don't know - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_Dutch_grammar could be complicated - I've run out of language knowledge here
So that was scientific.
The article notes that proto-indo-european only had animate and inanimate and that is not the same as gender. Animate here is "alive". A human and a tree are animate but a rock is inanimate. Rocks (outside of Terry Pratchett books do not procreate).
> The article notes that proto-indo-european only had animate and inanimate and that is not the same as gender
Grammatically, it is the same. Grammatical gender does not refer to biological sex, but rather a categorization system of nouns and their associated inflection patterns.
> Animate here is "alive". A human and a tree are animate but a rock is inanimate.
Outside of words for humans (and even there there are exceptions), the application of these categories is pretty random. For example, the Latin word for rock, petra, is feminine, not neuter.
Grammatically, it is the same. Grammatical gender does not refer to biological sex, but rather a categorization system of nouns and their associated inflection patterns.
> Animate here is "alive". A human and a tree are animate but a rock is inanimate.
Outside of words for humans (and even there there are exceptions), the application of these categories is pretty random. For example, the Latin word for rock, petra, is feminine, not neuter.
> Grammatically, it is the same. Grammatical gender does not refer to biological sex, but rather a categorization system of nouns and their associated inflection patterns.
Funny story: I've always remembered my german teacher getting flaberghasted at our inability to gender a table (as english speakers).
She was all: "Come on! what kind of qualities do you think a table has!"
And us high-schooler english speakers were just sitting there all :|
Funny story: I've always remembered my german teacher getting flaberghasted at our inability to gender a table (as english speakers).
She was all: "Come on! what kind of qualities do you think a table has!"
And us high-schooler english speakers were just sitting there all :|
Teaching a foreigner one's native language is one of those situations where completely arbitrary conventions (including, by the way, how to segment and classify phonemes!) can misleadingly seem like "obvious" facts, and like the foreigner is just being weirdly obtuse by not having a built-in intuition for those arbitrary conventions.
Funny, in German a "table" is masculine (der tisch) but in Romanian (romance language) is feminine (o masa), in Spanish is feminine (la mesa), Italian is masculine (il tavolo) unless you talk about having a supper (la tavola).
What I'm trying to say is that logic has nothing to do with it.
What I'm trying to say is that logic has nothing to do with it.
> Grammatically, it is the same. Grammatical gender does not refer to biological sex, but rather a categorization system of nouns and their associated inflection patterns.
Yep, a chair is male in Slovenian, but tree is neuter. Cats are feminine, dogs are male.
Studying German and French I quickly learned that their categories are different. You have to memorize the gender together with noun. Often you can guess correctly based on the suffix.
Yep, a chair is male in Slovenian, but tree is neuter. Cats are feminine, dogs are male.
Studying German and French I quickly learned that their categories are different. You have to memorize the gender together with noun. Often you can guess correctly based on the suffix.
Yeah, it's a common joke in German that you can't tell someone's gender by looking at their face:
the nose is female ("die Nase"), the mouth is male ("der Mund") and the eyes are neuter ("das Auge") :D
[deleted]
"Grammatical gender does not refer to biological sex"
I'm quite aware of that, especially after an unfortunate encounter that never happened with a table. She claimed to be French but it turned out to be German.
That all sounds a bit crap in English. I don't really know how "gender" for nouns feels or works in languages that emphasise it. We do ascribe gender to some nouns in English, such as boats/ships: "she".
Why on earth is petra feminine? I've been to Petra (capital P) and it is an incredible place.
I'm quite aware of that, especially after an unfortunate encounter that never happened with a table. She claimed to be French but it turned out to be German.
That all sounds a bit crap in English. I don't really know how "gender" for nouns feels or works in languages that emphasise it. We do ascribe gender to some nouns in English, such as boats/ships: "she".
Why on earth is petra feminine? I've been to Petra (capital P) and it is an incredible place.
Petra is the feminin to Petrus, that's why.
Dutch in colloquial language, masculine and feminine are merged to the common gender
Danish and Swedish are both common/neuter
Norwegian depends on the dialect. The dialects with more Danish influence may drop the feminine (or they may use masculine adjectives/determiners with feminine nouns), but certain words will still more commonly be used with feminine determiners, even if it might be OK to use masculine. E.g., 'boka mi' ('my book') and 'kona mi' ('my wife') is more idiomatic than 'boken min' and 'konen min' (I'm not a native speaker, so I can't be entirely certain about this).
Icelandic has m/f/n, as does Faroese I believe.
Danish and Swedish are both common/neuter
Norwegian depends on the dialect. The dialects with more Danish influence may drop the feminine (or they may use masculine adjectives/determiners with feminine nouns), but certain words will still more commonly be used with feminine determiners, even if it might be OK to use masculine. E.g., 'boka mi' ('my book') and 'kona mi' ('my wife') is more idiomatic than 'boken min' and 'konen min' (I'm not a native speaker, so I can't be entirely certain about this).
Icelandic has m/f/n, as does Faroese I believe.
Bornholmish retains three genders, in contrast to standard Danish.
It's a bit more complicated than that:
https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_dialekter
Look at the map here: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_dialekter#/media/Fil:De...
Look at the map here: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_dialekter#/media/Fil:De...
> English - nouns don't have a gender
Ordinary nouns might not appear to, but pronouns do; in fact, you can see two different gender distinctions in the English pronouns.
"Plain" pronouns have masculine, feminine, and neuter genders, he / she / it.
Interrogative/relative pronouns don't, but they do exhibit a gender distinction between who (for people) and what (for everything else). And since relative pronouns are applied to ordinary nouns, you can use relative who to identify which nouns belong to the people gender and, by implication, which don't.
(As a technical matter, you could also classify nouns into the masculine / feminine / neuter genders by looking at which pronouns substitute for them. This isn't really going to work in English. But the rules for who are strict enough to reflect a robust grammatical distinction in the language.)
The person/nonperson gender distinction is frequently read back into the plain pronouns, with it being reserved for nonpeople.
Ordinary nouns might not appear to, but pronouns do; in fact, you can see two different gender distinctions in the English pronouns.
"Plain" pronouns have masculine, feminine, and neuter genders, he / she / it.
Interrogative/relative pronouns don't, but they do exhibit a gender distinction between who (for people) and what (for everything else). And since relative pronouns are applied to ordinary nouns, you can use relative who to identify which nouns belong to the people gender and, by implication, which don't.
(As a technical matter, you could also classify nouns into the masculine / feminine / neuter genders by looking at which pronouns substitute for them. This isn't really going to work in English. But the rules for who are strict enough to reflect a robust grammatical distinction in the language.)
The person/nonperson gender distinction is frequently read back into the plain pronouns, with it being reserved for nonpeople.
This now makes me wonder if there are languages that do not make a who/what distinction.
Hungarian has no gender and doesn't even have distinct pronouns for he and she, but it does have a distinction between the pronoun ő (he/she/sentient animal/sometimes informally for inanimate objects) on the one hand and the determiners (?) ez/az (literally this/that, for inanimate objects) on the other hand. There is also a clear distinction between ki/mi (who/what). I've never heard of this being analyzed as a "gender" distinction, but I guess if the definition of gender is along the lines of "a group of words that behave in a distinct way", then it applies.
Hungarian has no gender and doesn't even have distinct pronouns for he and she, but it does have a distinction between the pronoun ő (he/she/sentient animal/sometimes informally for inanimate objects) on the one hand and the determiners (?) ez/az (literally this/that, for inanimate objects) on the other hand. There is also a clear distinction between ki/mi (who/what). I've never heard of this being analyzed as a "gender" distinction, but I guess if the definition of gender is along the lines of "a group of words that behave in a distinct way", then it applies.
The Latin interrogative pronouns are quis (masculine and feminine) and quid (neuter). I do not believe there is any distinction made between people and nonpeople. (Quis on its own will be translated as "who", and quid as "what", but this is just an example of the more general phenomenon that when modifiers appear alone in Latin, you supply an implicit "man", "woman", or "thing" as the noun to be modified. Thus dicta is common in the meaning "things that were said", without the need to explicitly say res [things] dictae or verba [words] dicta, and quis is common in the meaning "who?" without the need to explicitly say quis homo. If you wanted to ask "what sand...?", you'd say quis harena, not quid harena.)
The relative pronouns are qui (masculine) / quae (feminine) / quod (neuter); again I don't think any distinction is available to be made between people and nonpeople. You have to use the pronoun that matches m/f/n gender.
> I guess if the definition of gender is along the lines of "a group of words that behave in a distinct way"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender :
> In linguistics, grammatical gender is a specific form of noun class system in which the division of noun classes forms an agreement system with another aspect of the language, such as adjectives, articles, pronouns, or verbs.
In this case, we have an agreement system between nouns and pronouns.
There is another very significant division of noun classes in English, the division between mass nouns ("stuff"; "ice cream") and count nouns ("things"; "ice cube"). This has effects in several areas of the grammar (e.g. mass nouns do not have plural forms), and it does have some agreement effects also (you could analyze many and much as the same word in agreement with a count noun (for many) or a mass noun (for much)), but this distinction for whatever reason usually wouldn't be thought of as a "gender". The people/nonpeople distinction, which is reflected only in agreement effects, is much more typical of the terminology "gender".
The relative pronouns are qui (masculine) / quae (feminine) / quod (neuter); again I don't think any distinction is available to be made between people and nonpeople. You have to use the pronoun that matches m/f/n gender.
> I guess if the definition of gender is along the lines of "a group of words that behave in a distinct way"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender :
> In linguistics, grammatical gender is a specific form of noun class system in which the division of noun classes forms an agreement system with another aspect of the language, such as adjectives, articles, pronouns, or verbs.
In this case, we have an agreement system between nouns and pronouns.
There is another very significant division of noun classes in English, the division between mass nouns ("stuff"; "ice cream") and count nouns ("things"; "ice cube"). This has effects in several areas of the grammar (e.g. mass nouns do not have plural forms), and it does have some agreement effects also (you could analyze many and much as the same word in agreement with a count noun (for many) or a mass noun (for much)), but this distinction for whatever reason usually wouldn't be thought of as a "gender". The people/nonpeople distinction, which is reflected only in agreement effects, is much more typical of the terminology "gender".
> The article notes that proto-indo-european only had animate and inanimate and that is not the same as gender. Animate here is "alive". A human and a tree are animate but a rock is inanimate. Rocks (outside of Terry Pratchett books do not procreate).
Baseless speculation: I think I can see how gender might develop out of this paradigm. Far as I remember, there's the sky father and earth mother, and the sky impregnates the earth to create life. The animate/active is associated with the masculine, and the inanimate/passive with the feminine.
I've read a little about alchemy and the various ways one might determine the elemental nature of a thing, and this process was much more involved than one might expect, leading to a variety of interesting conclusions. I can imagine something similar behind the genders of things, at least at the beginning.
Baseless speculation: I think I can see how gender might develop out of this paradigm. Far as I remember, there's the sky father and earth mother, and the sky impregnates the earth to create life. The animate/active is associated with the masculine, and the inanimate/passive with the feminine.
I've read a little about alchemy and the various ways one might determine the elemental nature of a thing, and this process was much more involved than one might expect, leading to a variety of interesting conclusions. I can imagine something similar behind the genders of things, at least at the beginning.
The latin neuter still lives in a few common words in romance languages. For example, in Portuguese the words for "this" can be este, esta, isto. The first two are masculine and feminine. The third one is neuter, and doesn't go with masculine or feminine words. For example, you can say "este homem" (this man), but "isto" (this) remains alone.
Sure but este/esse/esta/essa are demonstrative adjectives. Isso/isto are standalone nouns which don’t take adjectives themselves, so how do you distinguish their gender?
That was quite informative. I speak Italian fluently, but had never heard such a good explanation of why you have un uovo, but le uova.
One thing that fascinates me are latin 1st declension masculine occupational nouns: pirata, nauta, poeta... Both pirata and poeta at least, take "il" in italian. Nauta it seems, did not survive.
Is there a good explanation for how these came to develop?
I've heard it explained by saying that "they're typically men's spheres" as rationale from my brief exposure to the language, but this seems deeply unsatisfying for a variety of reasons - id est, in comparison to something along the lines of loanword/archaism/evolution of root/evolution of grammatic gender.
I've heard it explained by saying that "they're typically men's spheres" as rationale from my brief exposure to the language, but this seems deeply unsatisfying for a variety of reasons - id est, in comparison to something along the lines of loanword/archaism/evolution of root/evolution of grammatic gender.
There is no rule in Latin that 1st declension nouns (i.e most nouns ending in -a) like nauta, pirata, pirata, etc must be feminine —- morphology and gender are independent. There was merely a strong tendency for them to be feminine, but as you can see there are exceptions. In short, -a does not mean feminine.
Another factor is that all three of those nouns are loanwords from Ancient Greek, which had quite a few 1st declension nouns that are masculine. Agricola (“farmer”) is an example of a native Latin masculine noun ending in -a.
You are right that occupational words that were typically associated with men tend to be masculine. Generally, nouns that describe people do match the gender of the person, though there are some exceptions.
Note: you’ll also find some -o nouns in Italian and Spanish that are feminine (e.g. la mano “the hand”).
Another factor is that all three of those nouns are loanwords from Ancient Greek, which had quite a few 1st declension nouns that are masculine. Agricola (“farmer”) is an example of a native Latin masculine noun ending in -a.
You are right that occupational words that were typically associated with men tend to be masculine. Generally, nouns that describe people do match the gender of the person, though there are some exceptions.
Note: you’ll also find some -o nouns in Italian and Spanish that are feminine (e.g. la mano “the hand”).
> In short, -a does not mean feminine.
Weeeellll... Latin doesn't distinguish nounal case endings from adjectival case endings. (I believe Russian does, which makes resolving certain grammatical questions much easier.)
But the gender of a noun is defined by the gender of an adjective that agrees with the noun. So quercus alta, a tall oak tree, is unambiguously feminine, despite ending in -us, because we can see that the adjective agreeing with it is feminine.
How do we know the adjective is feminine? That's easy, it ends in -a, and -a means feminine.
This tends not to support the theory that "-a does not mean feminine". :-/
Weeeellll... Latin doesn't distinguish nounal case endings from adjectival case endings. (I believe Russian does, which makes resolving certain grammatical questions much easier.)
But the gender of a noun is defined by the gender of an adjective that agrees with the noun. So quercus alta, a tall oak tree, is unambiguously feminine, despite ending in -us, because we can see that the adjective agreeing with it is feminine.
How do we know the adjective is feminine? That's easy, it ends in -a, and -a means feminine.
This tends not to support the theory that "-a does not mean feminine". :-/
Greek, for one, also has 2nd declension feminine nouns, e.g. παρθένος.
The reverse as well, the most common being el día, "the day"
These masculine words of 1st declension are typically of greek origin. They follow the 1st dec. pattern, despite being of the masculine genre.
I was hoping someone here would be able to explain it to me!
No explanation, but Spanish has some similar things with the -ista suffix (e.g., jornalista = journalist, Zapatista = follower of Zapata, etc.).
In Latin, those nouns are grammatically feminine and would be referred to with feminine pronouns and modified with feminine adjectives. There are a handful of first-declension names that take masculine pronouns and adjectives, none of which spring to mind at the moment.
In Latin, those nouns are grammatically feminine and would be referred to with feminine pronouns and modified with feminine adjectives. There are a handful of first-declension names that take masculine pronouns and adjectives, none of which spring to mind at the moment.
> In Latin, those nouns are grammatically feminine and would be referred to with feminine pronouns and modified with feminine adjectives.
This is not correct; dnautics mentioned a set of nouns which are common and always masculine. Textbooks generally cover this set specifically. Wheelock provides a list and the acronymic mnemonic UNUS NAUTA, which -- it points out -- doubles as a way to emphasize that nauta is masculine, not feminine.
This is not correct; dnautics mentioned a set of nouns which are common and always masculine. Textbooks generally cover this set specifically. Wheelock provides a list and the acronymic mnemonic UNUS NAUTA, which -- it points out -- doubles as a way to emphasize that nauta is masculine, not feminine.
As with nauta, pirata, and poeta, the suffix -ista is also borrowed from Greek which is a source of many masculine 1st declension loanwords in Latin.
(Jornalista is Portuguese, you're looking for periodista)
I'm even more interested in the fact that Latin tree names are second declension feminine. Pinus, quercus, etc. How did that work out?
I always ascribed that to be because the romans thought that nymphs inhabited trees. But are you sure those are second declension and not fourth declension?
> But are you sure those are second declension and not fourth declension?
No, I'm not sure. See the sibling subthread. They're not less weird in the fourth declension, which is itself overwhelmingly masculine or neuter.
That said, second declension forms do seem to be attested for nearly every case of pinus.
No, I'm not sure. See the sibling subthread. They're not less weird in the fourth declension, which is itself overwhelmingly masculine or neuter.
That said, second declension forms do seem to be attested for nearly every case of pinus.
Pinus and quercus are both fourth declination, not second, but there seem to be some elements of the second declination that have been included at some point (pini/pinorum/pinis and querci/quercorum) which muddy the waters a bit.
Huh. The Lewis and Short entry just makes me feel like I'm missing something - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=pinus&la=la#lexi...
"abl. sing. only pinu; gen. and abl. plur. pinorum and pinis)", but then it goes on to cite the accusative plural pinos in Virgil. And that note implies a strict distinction between dative plural pinibus and ablative pinis, which seems weird. Not that the rest of it isn't weird, I guess.
(As an aside, the note for quercus that "dat. and abl. plural do not occur"... I can believe that a lack of genitive and dative forms for vis is a fact about the language. Dative and ablative plural forms existing for pine trees, but not oak trees, feels more like a coincidence of the historical record than a fact about the language.)
"abl. sing. only pinu; gen. and abl. plur. pinorum and pinis)", but then it goes on to cite the accusative plural pinos in Virgil. And that note implies a strict distinction between dative plural pinibus and ablative pinis, which seems weird. Not that the rest of it isn't weird, I guess.
(As an aside, the note for quercus that "dat. and abl. plural do not occur"... I can believe that a lack of genitive and dative forms for vis is a fact about the language. Dative and ablative plural forms existing for pine trees, but not oak trees, feels more like a coincidence of the historical record than a fact about the language.)
"Head" is still neutral gender in Romanian. "One head" -> m, "two heads" -> f.
The author explains their argument for why Romanian neuter is not a true neuter but rather ambigenous (masculine in singular, feminine in plural).
This is one of those difficult cases where you have to decide which terminology you want to use. The best approach is probably to just accept that there are two different ways to define ‘gender’, as described by e.g. Aikhenvald (2000):
> The number of surface realizations of genders (target genders) can be different from types of agreement (controller genders). In Rumanian nouns divide into three gender classes. There are two surface markers of genders in singular and two in the plural, but three combinations of these … Thus, there are two target genders and three controller genders (or agreement classes).
It’s worth noting that such systems are not at all unusual, unlike what the article implies: Telugu, Somali, Khinalug and Burmeso all provide examples of such systems. I certainly don’t agree with the article that the Romanian neuter isn’t a ‘proper’ gender: it’s just that it’s a controller gender rather than a target gender.
> The number of surface realizations of genders (target genders) can be different from types of agreement (controller genders). In Rumanian nouns divide into three gender classes. There are two surface markers of genders in singular and two in the plural, but three combinations of these … Thus, there are two target genders and three controller genders (or agreement classes).
It’s worth noting that such systems are not at all unusual, unlike what the article implies: Telugu, Somali, Khinalug and Burmeso all provide examples of such systems. I certainly don’t agree with the article that the Romanian neuter isn’t a ‘proper’ gender: it’s just that it’s a controller gender rather than a target gender.
A few interesting language-related points:
Sanskrit and Hindi have no equivalent of the English word "the" (and, I think, of "a" either).
Sanskrit and Hindi have no concept of upper case vs. lower case letters, just a concept of letters.
Also, a vertical bar is the equivalent of the period or full stop of English.
Just realized (IIRC) that neither language has the concept of single or double quotation marks either :)
Sanskrit and Hindi have no equivalent of the English word "the" (and, I think, of "a" either).
Sanskrit and Hindi have no concept of upper case vs. lower case letters, just a concept of letters.
Also, a vertical bar is the equivalent of the period or full stop of English.
Just realized (IIRC) that neither language has the concept of single or double quotation marks either :)
Latin also has no articles, neither definite or indefinite, they were later derived from personal pronouns in Romance languages. Same for lower/upper case and punctuation marks, it's all (relatively) late invention - after the Classical period at least.
Wow, I had no idea of this. Interesting. My guess is that these points in common between Sanskrit, Hindi and Latin may be because of the PIE (Proto-Indo-European) ancestry of all three of them (and other European and Indian languages too).
There are many other points in common, such as similar-sounding everyday words like mother/ mata/mater, father/pitr/pita/pater, deci/dasha, brother/bhrata, deva/deus, and many more, although all may not have been derived through the common ancestry route; some can be loanwords or other,e.g. via Hindi -> Arabic -> European.
There are many other points in common, such as similar-sounding everyday words like mother/ mata/mater, father/pitr/pita/pater, deci/dasha, brother/bhrata, deva/deus, and many more, although all may not have been derived through the common ancestry route; some can be loanwords or other,e.g. via Hindi -> Arabic -> European.
In the Classical period Latin was so punctuation-free that words weren't even separated by spaces.
Weren't center dots common as word separators instead of spaces? For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome#/media/File:201...
Romans initially used center dots in early Roman history, but transitioned to continuous script for several centuries following exposure to Greek writing that used continuous script, before eventually transitioning to separating words with empty space. Use of the center dot seems to have persisted on monuments after it ceased to be used in ordinary writing.
The lack of spacing also led to an interesting phenomenon where most (perhaps nearly all) Romans could not read silently, and had to process written text by reading it aloud to themselves. There are some recorded instances of figures from Greek and Roman antiquity reading silently, but it’s generally remarked on as being surprising to those around them, and attributed to individuals that are otherwise attested to have been exceptionally intelligent (Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Saint Ambrose).
The lack of spacing also led to an interesting phenomenon where most (perhaps nearly all) Romans could not read silently, and had to process written text by reading it aloud to themselves. There are some recorded instances of figures from Greek and Roman antiquity reading silently, but it’s generally remarked on as being surprising to those around them, and attributed to individuals that are otherwise attested to have been exceptionally intelligent (Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Saint Ambrose).
Fascinating, thanks!
Finnish and Estonian also lack definite and indefinite articles (i.e. "the", "a"). Some of the work of articles is done by the use of the partitive. But in general, it's gonna take a new learner a while to get the hang of it.
The article is wrong that all Romance languages lost the neuter. Romanian still has it.
Edit: I just had to read further :)
But I’m not convinced by the author’s argument that Romanian neuter is not a real gender.
Edit: I just had to read further :)
But I’m not convinced by the author’s argument that Romanian neuter is not a real gender.
In Latin, the neuter has a distinct form. In Romanian, it’s a combination: masculine in singular and feminine in plural. What the article does is it takes a look at these differences and merely states the obvious, that the Romanian neuter is ambigenous, thus the Latin neuter (as a third, distinct, form) didn’t make it.
Addressed in the article.
> For example, in some contexts, Roma ‘Rome’ will be pronounced Rroma in Neapolitan; to go ‘to Rome’ is to go a Rroma, with a doubled or ‘geminated’ consonant.
I believe it's to phonetically make it separate from "aroma".
You could say the same as "o libro" mentioned a paragraf below, which is spelled "o libbrõ" while libro is, and was, masculine
I believe it's to phonetically make it separate from "aroma".
You could say the same as "o libro" mentioned a paragraf below, which is spelled "o libbrõ" while libro is, and was, masculine
You need to read the article before about the neuter gender in all indo-european languages.
And it needs to be discussed why german, greek and slavic kept it, and why the most modern, english, stripped all genders, but came from one of the most conservative family, german. In fact northern german is much more modern than the others. It did several radical simplifying transformations, leading to english in the end. (Simplifications = modern) Even leaving the modern roman languages behind. Which probably has Rumanian as it's most modern part. Simpler than french, italian, spanish.
And it needs to be discussed why german, greek and slavic kept it, and why the most modern, english, stripped all genders, but came from one of the most conservative family, german. In fact northern german is much more modern than the others. It did several radical simplifying transformations, leading to english in the end. (Simplifications = modern) Even leaving the modern roman languages behind. Which probably has Rumanian as it's most modern part. Simpler than french, italian, spanish.
I was surprised at the lack of mention of Russian there, currently being the 8th most spoken language in the world, in which neuter nouns are quite common. A quick glance at Wiktionary (for lack of a better source) shows that about 14% of the most common Russian words nouns are neuter[0].
[0]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Russian_nouns_by_gen...
[0]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Russian_nouns_by_gen...
Because the article is about Latin?
Touché :)
I know Russian isn't a Romance language, but it is Indo-European in origin, and I was wondering if maybe there was some parallel process that ended differently there.
But I suppose you're right, it's reasonably outside the scope of this article.
I know Russian isn't a Romance language, but it is Indo-European in origin, and I was wondering if maybe there was some parallel process that ended differently there.
But I suppose you're right, it's reasonably outside the scope of this article.
Czech has essentially four grammatical genders: In addition to the masculine, feminine and neuter, there is also masculine inanimate which shares some characteristics with the neuter such as having identical forms for the nominative and accusative cases.
But Slavic languages are very much a different part of the Indo-European family with most of them having bucked the trend of dropping declension of nouns and adjectives (Bulgarian has largely lost its declensions).
But Slavic languages are very much a different part of the Indo-European family with most of them having bucked the trend of dropping declension of nouns and adjectives (Bulgarian has largely lost its declensions).
Slovenian & a couple of other Slavic languages even still have the dual besides plural and singular :)
Czech takes it a bit further and changes declensions for plurals greater than 4 (it actually just drops some cases and uses the genitive plural form instead—I forget the details). I suspect this is an odd variant of the dual rule from some proto-Slavic language.
Icelandic also retains a complex system of noun declensions.
> I know Russian isn't a Romance language, but it is Indo-European in origin, and I was wondering if maybe there was some parallel process that ended differently there.
The phenomenon this article talks about seems specific to Latin:
> To trace the decline of the neuter, we can begin with a theoretical principle: the process must have begun early, at a time when Latin was still a unified language. If we do not accept this as a first premise, it becomes very difficult to explain why the neuter is absent from the whole Romance family – why its decline was so uniform. This is not to say that the neuter had died completely when Romance languages first emerged, only that the seeds had already been sown and the die already cast.
Though I suppose your observation that Russian (and I think other Indo-European languages) still have the neuter gender kinda confirms that.
The phenomenon this article talks about seems specific to Latin:
> To trace the decline of the neuter, we can begin with a theoretical principle: the process must have begun early, at a time when Latin was still a unified language. If we do not accept this as a first premise, it becomes very difficult to explain why the neuter is absent from the whole Romance family – why its decline was so uniform. This is not to say that the neuter had died completely when Romance languages first emerged, only that the seeds had already been sown and the die already cast.
Though I suppose your observation that Russian (and I think other Indo-European languages) still have the neuter gender kinda confirms that.
In addition to Russian, there are many other Indo-European languages that retain the neuter. E.g.: Icelandic, German, modern Greek. And some others besides Latin have lost it: Old Persian had it but modern Persian doesn't; same for Sanskrit vs. modern Hindi.
Russian is not a romance language. It having a neutral gender is not relevant to this article. There's lots of languages that have a neutral gender, just not really any currently spoken romance languages.
As a speaker of Romanian, I can assure you that Romanian has the neutral gender and it's currently spoken by over 20m people.
The argument of the article that the adjectives or articles are either masculine or feminine doesn't hold water for me because the neuter nouns behave differently from either masculine or feminine ones.
The argument of the article that the adjectives or articles are either masculine or feminine doesn't hold water for me because the neuter nouns behave differently from either masculine or feminine ones.
Edit: why on earth is this being downvoted? Seriously confused - is something here wrong or controversial?