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Why *do* they call this taxon gender?
Historically, gender had nothing to do with sex. The two concepts have become conflated in Modern English but in some languages the genders are, e.g., long thin objects, flat round objects, etc. In some languages nouns of different genders have different number names used when counting them.
The IE root is a word meaning to give birth, beget, but the meaning had shifted to kind before it came to be applied to the grammatical concept. Das Mädchen is neuter because all diminutive words are neuter in German.
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Ships that pass in the night
jmh 03/21/02 08:29 AM ![]()
Re: Ships that pass in the night
stales 03/21/02 01:51 PM ![]()
Re: Ships that pass in the night
hev 03/22/02 01:55 AM ![]()
Re: Ships that pass in the night
Faldage 03/21/02 01:51 PM ![]()
Re: Ships that pass in the night
Geoff 03/21/02 02:26 PM ![]()
Das Boot
TheFallibleFiend 03/21/02 02:53 PM ![]()
Re: Das Boot
Faldage 03/21/02 03:10 PM ![]()
Re: Das Boot
TheFallibleFiend 03/21/02 03:21 PM ![]()
Re: Das Boot
WhitmanO'Neill 03/21/02 04:51 PM ![]()
Re: Ships that pass in the night
Faldage 03/21/02 02:58 PM ![]()
Re: Ships that pass in the night
Capital Kiwi 03/21/02 09:43 PM
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