LINGUIST List 14.3370

Sun Dec 7 2003

Disc: Re: Grammatical Gender

Editor for this issue: Sarah Murray <sarahlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Greville Corbett, Re: 14.3280, Disc: Re: Grammatical Gender
2. Rajendran C, Re: 14.3341, Disc: Re: Grammatical Gender

Message 1: Re: 14.3280, Disc: Re: Grammatical Gender

Neil Chalk takes up Karen Stanley's comment on gender, namely ''[I
wondered] where the concept of nouns as having *gender* (versus simply
being in different categories, or being different classes of noun)
originated.'' (Linguist 14.3254)

'Gender' derives from Latin 'genus' via Old French 'gendre',
originally meaning 'kind' or 'sort'. Of course, there are many kinds
of noun that could be suggested - those with more than three
syllables, those denoting abstracts, and so on. But 'gender' is
normally reserved for kinds or classes of noun which are, as Hockett
(1958: 231) put it 'reflected in the behavior of associated words'. In
other words, this is an externally motivated classification, and the
reflection in the behavior of associated words is agreement (including
for some linguists antecedent-anaphor relations). We divide the noun
inventory into different kinds, or genders, according to the different
agreements they take. When we do this, we find that in the more
familiar languages, the different kinds or genders have a semantic
core based on sex (thus Russian nouns divide into three kinds, and
nouns denoting males, though not only these, group together, and those
denoting females also group in another gender). In less familiar
languages the structures may be very similar but the semantic core is
based not on sex, but for instance on human versus non-human or
animate versus inanimate.

Greville Corbett
Surrey Morphology Group

Message 2: Re: 14.3341, Disc: Re: Grammatical Gender

Indian philosophers of grammar like Bhartrhari have made some
interesting observations on the grammatical gender.

For details, please refer to the following articles in ASPECTS OF
PANINIAN SEMANTICS[2002],Ed.C.Rajendran, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi.

Dr.Kapil Kapoorand Dr.Santosh Kumar Shukla: Theory of Gender and its
generation in Panini.

Meera Chakravarty: Gender Description in Vyakarana

Prahlada Char: Semantic perspectives on Stripratyayas.


-C. Rajendran

=====
Dr.C.Rajendran 
Professor of Sanskrit
University of Calicut