In the more archaic Norwegian dialects and "Nynorsk" ho - she, han -
he and det -it are used strictly according to the old IE gender
system.
In the Norwegian spoken in Oslo and "Bokmål", animate/inanimate
(this is not a precise term) is the main distinction. The animate is
divided into people/other things, and both of these again divided
into masculine/feminine- actually a gender system consisting of
three hierarchical levels.
This logical structure is well rendered in the pronoun system, and
in the noun declention. Ajectives only make the animate/inanimate
distinction. (Exept that there are some trazes og the old three-
gender-system in some styles of speech)
--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
wrote:
>
> > The distinction here is not animate/inanimate but rather
human/non-
> human. As far as I know, Danish and Norwegian have the same
system.
> Any Danish/Norwegian members on this list who would like to
comment
> on this?
> >
> Colloquial Swedish uses also at least 'hon "she" of things of
former
> geammatically feminine gender, eg. 'Klockan, hon är fem' "The time
> [clock], she is five". That use is dialectal in Danish.
>
> Torsten