Klarinet Archive - Posting 000086.txt from 2000/01

From: "Michael Bryant" <michael@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: languages
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 09:36:10 -0500

I hope you don't mind me saying that
in Czech the 'masculine' gender has two subdivisions:
animate and inanimate.
So it might be argued by linguists more
knowledgeable than me that Czech has 4 genders?
Ahoj!

Mike Bryant

Karel Vahala <vahalakv@-----.au> wrote 04 January 2000 10:28 Languages

>Gender has nothing in common with "case". A given noun will have one gender
only,
>but will have multiple cases available to it, depending on the language in
>question. My own language, Czech, has 3 genders: male, female and neutral.
The
>nouns, however, go through 7 cases in singular and 7 cases in plural. As a
simple
>illustration, a noun changes its case ending instead of the use of
prepositions as
>in English : with, to, for, and so on. The meaning of gender and "case" are
very
>different.
>
>Karel.
>
>Roger Shilcock wrote:
>
>> It all depends what you define as gender --- if you count the noun
classes
>> of Bantu languages as a form of gender, there are languages with teens of
>> them. Finnish is generally said to have fifteen cases, by the way, though
>> some of them are hardly used in the spoken language. There are languages
>> in the Caucasus with far more cases than this.
>> Roger Shilcock
>>
>> On Fri, 24 Dec 1999, Rien Stein wrote:
>>
>> > Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 23:03:51 +0100
>> > From: Rien Stein <rstein@-----.nl>
>> > Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
>> > To: klarinet digest <klarinet@-----.org>
>> > Subject: [kl] Re: languages
>> >
>> > On Thu, 23 Dec 1999 23:39:14 -0500 Danny Ehrhart wrote:
>> >
>> > >what about us students that are taught French but don't speak it. I'm
prime
>> > >example. I don't see why we need masculine and feminine articles?!
(That's
>> > >the part I have the most trouble with!) But I try, maybe I'll be able
to
>> > use
>> > >it some day!
>> >
>> >
>> > Dear Danny
>> >
>> > French is a rather uncomplicated language: it has only two genders.
Many
>> > languages have three, usually indicated as male, female and neutral. I

am
>> > not aware of any language having more than three genders.
>> >
>> > You can do quite without genders: English contains only one, the
Indonesian
>> > has none at all, and also this language, like Russian, has no articles.
>> > Don't shout hoorray to these languages, though, they are not simple! In
>> > Russian you have no articles, but you "ll meet all three the genders,
and
>> > besides six cases (and many more difficulties), in Finnish (I never
learned
>> > that one, but a friend of mine did) you have even eight. So cheer up,
do the
>> > best you can, and try to get fluent in French. Be not as that LA woman,
that
>> > said to me "I teach French, but I cannot speak it!" It gives much
richness
>> > to your life, when you master a language, and, believe me, I think it
is
>> > easier to become fluent in a foreign language, than to learn to play
>> > clarinet ...
>> >
>> > Rien
>> >
>> >
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