tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11840313.post478501841073196315..comments2024-03-10T10:54:59.776-07:00Comments on Ben Witherington: Gender Battles that ComputeBen Witheringtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06017701050859255865noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11840313.post-9139764579914615842007-07-29T20:17:00.000-07:002007-07-29T20:17:00.000-07:00I am apparently not quite yet academic enough as w...I am apparently not quite yet academic enough as when I read your post, I enjoyed it, instead of [intellectually] picking it apart...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11840313.post-34741387305651189342007-07-20T04:18:00.000-07:002007-07-20T04:18:00.000-07:00Surely English has grammatical gender as well as o...Surely English has grammatical gender as well as other ancient and modern languages. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is difficult to recognise gender by determiners and adjectives. All English nouns carry grammatical gender whether it be masculine, feminine, or neuter. The intersting thing about English is that it has nouns which can have two or more of these genders - e.g. teacher (could be masculine or feminine), or child (could be masculine, feminine or neuter).<BR/><BR/>Other languages such as Greek, French and German also indicate the gender of nouns with determiners and adjectives: e.g. in German one can speak of "ein großer Mann" (a tall man), "eine kluge Frau" (a clever woman), or "ein kleines Kind" (a small child). One must decline adjectives and determiners to agree with the case and number of the noun; however, in the case of "das Kind" (the child), one could, in spoken German at least, replace the neuter relative pronoun with a masculine or feminine equivalents (out of respect for the actual gender of the child).<BR/><BR/>Modern English just sweeps away the need for the complicated system of declining adjectives and determiners in this way.Tim Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04376508321117152884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11840313.post-10266216013482764472007-07-19T23:41:00.000-07:002007-07-19T23:41:00.000-07:00By the way, the difference in daily word count of ...By the way, the difference in daily word count of men and women seems to be an urban legend, see:<BR/><BR/>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6269204.stmRuud Vermeijhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06947453585488967314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11840313.post-79620871795739075022007-07-19T19:44:00.000-07:002007-07-19T19:44:00.000-07:00And the same can be said about other gender inflec...And the same can be said about other gender inflected languages such as Greek and Hebrew. English is just weird.<BR/><BR/>BW3Ben Witheringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06017701050859255865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11840313.post-25876062695200202282007-07-19T19:12:00.000-07:002007-07-19T19:12:00.000-07:00I'm sure just about everyone knows this but just i...I'm sure just about everyone knows this but just in case let me clarify that the gender of a noun in Spanish has nothing to do with its function. With the exception of a very few anomalies it is just about always determined by its spelling.<BR/><BR/>Nevertheless, a very humorous post.José Solanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04589289554046198929noreply@blogger.com