Re: [tied] Gender Logic (was: Bader's article on *-os(y)o)

>As a half-way house, we have Russian
> _vrac^_ 'physician', which is masculine although most physicians are
> women. I've seen a paper published (c. 1980) on the fact that
> Russians tend to use a female pronoun to refer to a woman physician!

You must have meant "male", since there's nothing unusual in using a female
pronoun when referring a woman, isn't it (also in the verb: _vrac^ skazála_
(of a woman))? But colloquial Russian gets rid of this inconsistency by
applying a word prohibited in the standard literary language: _vrac^íxa_ 'a
woman physician', lit. 'doctor-ess' (vs. _vrac^_ of a man).