Grammatical gender
Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2022 2:36 am
Why do many languages have grammatical gender? Why do different nouns – including those for inanimate objects – take different forms of article and adjective, corresponding to 'masculine', 'feminine' and (in some languages) 'neuter'? How did this phenomenon evolve?
It seems to add an unnecessary complication to language, to no expressive purpose (since the gender of particular nouns cannot be varied). One would have thought that the development of a language would take the simplest path to a given level of expression, without any seemingly pointless inflections. At what point in the evolution of a given language did it become necessary for an article or adjective to 'agree' with a noun, and why? Why not use a single form of article and adjective for every noun, as in English?
The situation is further complicated where a language inflects for case, as in German and Latin. Different genders have a different set of case-forms to be learned, and there can be many different cases. How can these gender differences have arisen, given that a language initially develops 'upwards' from uneducated people, and not 'downwards' from academic institutions?
It is interesting that in both German and Latin all 'neuter' nouns and adjectives have the same form for the subjective (nominative) and objective (accusative) cases. Why is this? Could it be because the neuter gender is assigned to nouns referring to things for which the case is not so important? And why do a few nouns have the 'wrong' gender (e.g. la recrue (recruit) in French)?
Any explanations would be welcome.
It seems to add an unnecessary complication to language, to no expressive purpose (since the gender of particular nouns cannot be varied). One would have thought that the development of a language would take the simplest path to a given level of expression, without any seemingly pointless inflections. At what point in the evolution of a given language did it become necessary for an article or adjective to 'agree' with a noun, and why? Why not use a single form of article and adjective for every noun, as in English?
The situation is further complicated where a language inflects for case, as in German and Latin. Different genders have a different set of case-forms to be learned, and there can be many different cases. How can these gender differences have arisen, given that a language initially develops 'upwards' from uneducated people, and not 'downwards' from academic institutions?
It is interesting that in both German and Latin all 'neuter' nouns and adjectives have the same form for the subjective (nominative) and objective (accusative) cases. Why is this? Could it be because the neuter gender is assigned to nouns referring to things for which the case is not so important? And why do a few nouns have the 'wrong' gender (e.g. la recrue (recruit) in French)?
Any explanations would be welcome.