[B-Greek] Gender

Dr. Don Wilkins drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net
Thu May 17 15:44:39 EDT 2007


Please see remarks below.

On May 16, 2007, at 2:09 PM, Randall Buth wrote:

> Kevin Riley EGRAPSE
>> Someone has already mentioned that grammatical gender is primarily  
>> about
>> noun class, not natural gender.  Some languages have no gender,  
>> some have
>> multiple 'genders' - in which case they are usually not referred  
>> to as
>> genders'.  I think we could save a lot of confusion if we referred  
>> to a
>> noun class" rather than a 'gender' when teaching as it is  
>> inevitable that
>> people from a background with a language that has no grammatical  
>> gender will
>> confuse grammatical gender with natural gender.
>
> KAI Don PROSQEIS EGRAPSE
>> I would agree that confusing the two kinds of gender is a bad thing
>> and needs to be dealt with, but throwing out gender altogether is
>> like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Gender in language
>> certainly is not random as a whole, and the persistence of agreement
>> of natural gender with grammatical gender for many items is not
>> coincidence. Otherwise we would find words like "man" and "woman"
>> being of unpredictable gender across languages. Moreover, in many
>> cases gender oddities are undoubtedly explicable, e.g. that of
>> Madchen in German.
>> As for noun class, it seemed to me that Randall
>> was talking about what is traditionally called declension (please
>> correct me if I misunderstood).
>
> [RB]
> Since you asked -- I was not talking about either declension or  
> PTWSIS.
> Kevin was correct, I was talking about gender as grammatical NOUN
> CLASSES. Why? Because that is what "genders" are. A 'gender' is a
> grammatical class of nouns that require grammatical agreement with a
> particular class of adjectives, pronouns (and in some languages verbal
> markers).
> Yes, NOUN CLASSES (a.k.a. genders) cut across 'declensions', and yes,
> such a term is preferrable because it is more flexible, applies to any
> and every language, and avoids the inevitable, mis-directed energy for
> students coming from single-NOUN CLASS languages like English where
> they always want to know why Greek SARKS 'flesh' is feminine, Greek
> KREAS 'meat' is neuter and Greek MAZOS 'breast' is masculine.

(DW) I did ask, and thanks for the clarification. However, you appear  
to be begging the question when you say "Because that is what  
'genders' are" and then present a rather nondescript explanation as a  
standard definition. Also, I think your argument is a generalization  
of the particular, evidently to deal with gender oddities. It seems  
to solve nothing. You have simply acknowledged the oddities as  
inexplicable, and have attempted to generalize the terminology to  
account for that.
>
> [DW]
>> Gender cuts across declensions. And
>> for those languages that have no genders or have more than three (I
>> am unfamiliar with such languages),
>
> Actually, you are writing in English which has one "gender", and
> hence, the cateogry is not recognized, since it doesn't distinguish
> anything. It becomes a 'zero' gender because it only has one.

(DW)
Again, begging the question. The fact that English does not have  
suffixes like many other languages is irrelevant. It does recognize  
gender in the form of personal pronouns, and the lack of suffixes in  
adjectives and the like is not a denial of gender per se, but a loss  
of grammatical indicators in general. You could say virtually the  
same about the lack of case in English. The suffixes are mostly  
missing, but we nonetheless identify and use case relationships.
>
>> does the traditional structure
>> need to be thrown out on the grounds that it does not accommodate  
>> them?
>
> As for throwing things out, well, we don't throw out 'weight' just
> because it is a function of 'mass' + 'gravity force'. 'Gender' is a
> metaphorical name for a subset of "nounclasses" in languages that have
> only two or three such classes. We use the generic classification
> "noun class" in order to understand the specific instance of noun
> classes that are called "gender".

(DW)
The analogy doesn't work for me; weight is a legitimate designation  
for the combination of mass and gravitational force. You seem to be  
saying that gender is an illegitimate term and therefore  
"metaphorical." I've already commented on your generalization of gender.
>
> Incidently I use the terms, or rather the Greek ones, when talking
> about Greek nouns, because the Greeks  used them and the terms are
> fitting metaphors. TA GENH:  ARSENIKON, QHLUKON, OUDETERON. It worked
> for the Greeks and it works for everyone.

Again, you speak of metaphor. As the Greek terminology indicates, the  
genders were very clear to the Greeks. One would not say that  
ARSENIKON is metaphorical  when applied to a word referring to a man  
(e.g. ANHR), or QHLUKON metaphorical as applied to a word like GYNE.  
For the oddities, metaphor won't do, because it presumes some point  
of comparison where there is none. If there were, it would take us  
back to gender as a legitimate distinction.

> In addition, I footnote the
> linguistic description for students who want to know what these
> grammatical entities are, since they are obviously not restricted to
> physical sex. See note above. I seem to remember a witty, sexual, poem
> or two in the Greek Anthology that plays with this side of the
> language but I don't have time to peruse the 15 or so books to look
> for an example. Many are by first century authors.
> One symposion song (from a first century papyrus) that comes to mind
> has a verse, with an ambiguous last line regarding 'gender':
>
>  KRHNAS AUTORUTOUS MELITOS TREIS HQELON EXEIN
>  Κρήνας αὐτορύτους μέλιτος τρεῖς  
> ἤθελον ἔχειν,
> I would like to have three fountains flowing with honey
>
>  πέντε γαλακτορύτους, οἴνου δέκα,  
> δώδεκα μύρου,
>  PENTE GALAKTORUTOUS, OINOU DEKA, DWDEKA MUROU
> five flowing with milk, ten with wine, twelve with myrrh,
>
>  καὶ δύο πηγαίων ὑδάτων, καὶ  
> τρείς χιονέων·
>  KAI DUO PHGAIWN UDATWN KAI TREIS XIONEWN
> and two springs of water and three of melted snows
>
>  παῖδα κατὰ κρήνην καὶ παρθένον  
> ἤθελον ἔχειν.
>  PAIDA KATA KRHNHN KAI PARQENON HQELON EXEIN
> a boy by each fountain and a girl I would like to have.
>
> chorus:       αὔλει μοι.
>                  AULEI MOI
>                  play a flute for me
>
> The last line of the verse, of course, is ambiguous. A PAIS 'child,
> slave' could be either O or H, a boy or a girl, and a PARQENON
> 'virgin' could also be O or H, a boy or a girl. However, knowing the
> Greek culture, it is likely that PAIS (aitiatike: PAIDA) refers to a
> pre-pubescent boy, and PARQENOS, a teenage girl. From a Jewish
> perspective the culture was sick.

(DW)
Now you are changing the subject in an attempt (as I see it) to make  
an irrelevant relevant. Interpreting the poet's intention has little  
or no bearing on gender as a matter of grammar, and there is no clear  
wordplay here having to do with gender. If we wanted to dig into the  
poem further, we would also need to consider meter as a factor. As  
for PAIS and PARQENOS, their dual genders present no grammatical  
problem of which I am aware. If we want an explanation, we need to  
research their use throughout Greek literature.
>
> This is why the Passover tractate in the Mishna tells people not to do
> EPI KWMON 'go to a wild Greek party' after celebrating PESAH.
>
> And what is this song doing here? In our sxolé this summer the Greek
> students will be visiting Tsipori near Nazareth, where there is an
> ancient house with a banquet/symposion room with beautiful mosaics all
> around, and a bit of Greek, depicting themes of DIONYSIOS, including a
> defeat of HRAKLHS in wine drinking. We will read the six extant verses
> of the symposion song as a window into the first century language. It
> is quite educational to read texts that fit sites, like the '1st
> century death of Pan' at the Paneion (Caesarea Philippi), or the first
> century imperial grave-robbing prohibition at Bet Shearim, not to
> mention appropriate NT texts.

(DW)
Sounds like a lovely trip, one that I'm sure we would all love to  
take. However, your statement "We will read the six extant verses
> of the symposion song as a window into the first century language"  
> would concern me, in the sense that it does not reveal much about  
> the language, as far as I can tell. Having said all this, let me  
> thank you for the time you took in such a thoughtful and extensive  
> response. I also appreciate your effort in trying to deal with the  
> problems of gender, even if I can't agree with your approach. So I  
> beg to agree to disagree.

Don Wilkins




More information about the B-Greek mailing list