From: andythewiros
Message: 66435
Date: 2010-08-12
>Your answer has been most informative.
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "andythewiros" <anjarrette@> wrote:
> > Do you have any ideas re my earlier question, why "chair" (*sto:laz) should be masculine in gender in Gmc while "ship" (*skipam) or "vessel, container" (*fatam) should be neuter? Of course there are many other similar pairings in Gmc where the gender seems to be completely arbitrary.
>
> The gender assignment rules of PIE are obscure to me, and having *skipam rather than **skipaz may reflect the origin of the word when it was acquired by Germanic. I could claim that 'chair' is obviously animate - it has the same classifier in Thai as animals, apparently because it has legs. (Having arms is also grounds for that same classifier - and T-shirts count as having arms!) However, that suggestion needs similar examples for it to be taken seriously for PIE. If you wish to explore this idea, that classifier, _tua_, is the classifier for digits, bodies, shirts, trousers, suits, animals, fish, germs, chairs, tables, desks and software titles(?), to which I can add letters of the alphabet.
>