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

Immature human beings are often classified as neuter. Girls have to suffer this indignity in a number of languages. English ears were attuned to something different a millennium ago: Old English maegden 'girl' was neuter as well, and strangest of all, wi:fmann 'wife, woman' was formally masculine (because the compound had -mann as its second element).

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: P&G

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 9:11 PM

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

>In many modern IE languages (e.g. Russian or German), the >masculine gender includes "men plus a (large) residue", the >feminine includes "women plus a (large) residue", ...

Largely true, of course, but it's worth remembering that a male or female may be of neuter gender grammatically. The use of the neuter pronoun is startling to English ears, in sentences such as "Das Maedchen kam ins Zimmer. Es war sehr huebsch."

Peter