X-To: PO%"WORDS-L@UGA.BITNET"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Thu, 13 Aug 1992 15:15:19 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      RE: Gender

>> I supppose--to the extent that some nouns and pronouns are marked
>> for gender.  On the other hand, ships occur as 'she' as well as

>I've always thought of things like the use of "she" for ships as
>metaphorical.

It's all metaphor, on the one hand.  On the other, the
acceptability of 'she' for ships--the use of a form marked for
sex, if not gender, is no more metaphorical than the use of the
neuter for girl (madchen) in German.  It *is* different in that
it occurs against the background of a language (English) where
things are not marked for sex generally.  There is nothing
grammatically wrong with "she" in connection with a ship, though.
The question of grammatical gender, it seems to my tiny mind, is
one of correctness, not of what does or does not make sense.  If
an Italian were to say, "She's a beautiful car," a native speaker
of English has two choices--or possibilities:  she/he feels it
'metaphorically', if you like; or if he/she knows enough Italian,
she/he recognizes that it is a direct translation from the
Italian where car (machina) is grammatically feminine and the
Italian was probably taught that "she" is feminine in English--
which only leads me back to say that "she" in English is marked
for *sex* not gender.  That's why the funny "metaphorical"
feeling when used about ships.


>>     So I guess the question becomes is there such a thing as
>> 'natural gender.'   Gender is just what we call it these days.
>> As Karen noted, the G(r)eeks could have just done called
>> 'genders' alpha, beta, and gamma (especially since that is how

>If "gender is just what we call it these days," isn't it therefore
>gender?   I agree, of course, that the Greeks could have just as
>easily used alpha, beta, etc.

1) Who is responsible, do you know, for the adoption of 'gender'
to describe the differences in grammatical forms?  I don't.  I'll
have a go at LEXIS to see.

2) Just calling it gender has certain effects, I think.  But it
does not "make it" gender.  Isn't the ambiguity in the word
what's causing this divine discussion?  I guess what I am trying
to insist upon is the difference between gender and sex.
Grammatical gender has to do with the form of the word and also
other grammatical consequences in the production of correct
sentences.  Sex has to do with the referents of the lexical items
themselves, with distinctions that we make about the world we
attempt to describe.
      Someone has a cat.  I say "she's a cuty."  The owner
corrects me.  "He," she says.  If I were to say the equivalent in
German, I might not be corrected because "Katze" is grammatically
feminine.  "She" is grammatically correct, if not anatomically
so.
   Am I making sense or boring you all to tears--and flames?


>I don't think languages like French and Spanish are good examples of
>grammatical gender, btw, since natural gender is also involved.

There as good as any other.  They are, in fact, wonderful
examples *because* of the confusion that doesn't exist in
English.

>Somehow this discussion reminds me of a question I think I asked on
>the list a long time ago.  Do Modern English nouns have case?  Is the
>case of "dog" in "The dog chased the cat" different from what it is i
>"The cat chased the dog"?

Depends on how you define case.  Jakobsonians would have it--and
it's a more elegant proposition--that a different "case" requires
a different form.  In which case, no, there's no accusative case
in English.  There is the genitive case's occasional appearance.
English does it all (almost) with word placement and
prepositions.

I really don't think that there is any good alternative to
insisting that a different case cannot exist without a different
form.  But I'm muddling through this life like everyone else.
Astounding new ideas are always . . . well . . . astounding.

>   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)

--Mka

"Was hat sie das Kind genannt?"
"Hamlet"
"Warum denn?"
"Sein oder nicht sein."
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