Re: Grammatical Gender

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "andythewiros" <anjarrette@...> wrote:

>
> I was actually thinking of why *sto:laz "chair" is masculine in
> Germanic, while *sedlam "seat" is, if I'm not mistaken, neuter, and
> things like that. That's why I'm hoping to read Brugmann's article
> once it's posted.

Most native English-speakers are puzzle by why anybody would do that. Historically the interesting part, I think, is why English (and Vestjysk) gave it up, and why Dutch, North West Low German and the other continental Scandinavian languages decided to lose the difference between masculine and feminine while retaining that between common gender and neuter (substrate? but which?), and before that why non-Anatolian IE decided to introduce a feminine gender.

Myself, I was puzzled, when first getting acquainted with the English language, why anybody would want to use 'am', are' and 'is' for the same word, I mean, they all mean "er" in my language (Swedish är)? So, perhaps as a native speaker of the language, you are the one I should ask: Why do you all do a silly thing like that?


Torsten