LINGUIST List 14.3581

Tue Dec 23 2003

Disc: Re: Grammatical Gender

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

Directory

1. Prof. Dr. Marlis Hellinger, Re: 14.3513, Disc: Re: Grammatical Gender

Message 1: Re: 14.3513, Disc: Re: Grammatical Gender

Dear all,

Re Joseph Foster's (Dec 19) comment on Hellinger & Bussmann
(2001/2002/2003) Gender across Languages. 3 vols. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.

Before jumping to unfounded conclusions from falsely interpreting
simply a book title, Joseph Foster should have taken the time at least
to check out -

(a) the work's Tables of Contents, where he would have found that the
work contains not only contributions on gender languages (including
Swahili!), but also many (grammatically) genderless languages like
Chinese and Vietnamese, including Japanese AND Turkish ...

(b) the work's "General Introduction", where in much detail, and
naturally, NOT without extensive references to Corbett (1991), four
categories of gender are distinguished: grammatical, lexical-semantic,
referential and social (covert).

Next time, a little more care should be taken before criticizing a
book without knowing what's in it ...


Merry Xmas!
Marlis Hellinger