Re: [tied] Gender (Was: Dating PIE)

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 11023
Date: 2001-11-06

Piotr:
>In the North Caucasus there are languages with up to eight noun
>classes or "genders"; Chechen, for example, has five or six depending on
>who's counting (Class I, "human", shows a m./f.
>subdivision). Originally the "non-human" classes correlated with
>such semantic characteristics as roundness, length and size.

A sad moment of truth: Sometimes, roundness, length and yes,
even size really DOES matter >:P

- love gLeN


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