[B-Greek] Gender

Dr. Don Wilkins drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net
Fri May 18 14:12:37 EDT 2007


Finally, I think we are approaching some sense of agreement (to  
disagree). See below.

On May 18, 2007, at 4:04 AM, Randall Buth wrote:

>> (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.
>
> Exactly. It appears that we might be in agreement.
> 'Noun classes' are a generalization from a particular.
> It deals with gender oddities. Howwever, while it does not explain why
> 'table' in Greek and Spanish is put in the same class as females,
> while 'table' in Hebrew is put in the same class with males, [or Gr.
> QALASSA female with Hb. YAM 'male', or Gr. HLIOS male with Hb. SHEMESH
> f. etc etc etc], it does accomodate the randomness both within and
> across languages. It also explains and accomodates why everything
> asexual isn't lumped into 'neuter' in a three-nounclass system.
> So, yes, this acknowledges the oddities as inexplicable.
>
> One note needs to be added: oddities in English sounds marginal,
> something left-over that doesn't fit, while in fact, the inexplicables
> and the randomness are the MAJORITY of the items. By far, the majority
> of nouns in any 2-nounclass or 3-nounclass language do not have
> inherent sex but are put into these grammatical classes in ways that
> are unpredictable to any one language or language family. To be sure,
> the random choices do tell us something, not too clear at all, about
> how the choices might have been made, if we were on scene. Perhaps
> 'table' in Greek was associated to food and life and life with females
> and 'voila' table is in the class with females. Or maybe someone in
> the distant past, tripped, said PEZA for 'footstand' instead of PODS
> 'm. foot', thought it sounded nice with the 'A' at the end, which
> stuck with others. Or just wanted a PEZA to be different from POUS m.
> Then followed up with (te)TRAPEZA and TR(I)APEZA (?). Meanwhile, in
> Canaan some people were buying a fine SHULHAN from some traders and
> called it masculine because it was a new thing and 'davar Hadash' "new
> thing" was masculine. And the first SHULHANOT m. (note the plural
> formation!) were likely of `ETs 'wood m.' not EVEN 'stone f.!' Of
> course, this is pure speculation, irrelevant, etc. The facts are
> simply that Greek has tens of thousands of common nouns whose reasons
> for  categorization can only be guessed at. Ditto Hebrew. And Yes,
> analogy worked within the systems so that somethings might snow-ball
> and attract words into one class or another. Word shape, sound,
> analogy, borrowings, unrecoverable unique events, etc., all played
> their part in the coalescing of nouns into their various noun classes.
> Once the -SIS nouns were put in the category with females, then other
> -SIS nouns (ANAGNWSIS 'reading') were funneled that way, so that when
> encountering a new -SIS word a learner knows which category it belongs
> to. But the basic choice to make -SIS words and to group them in the
> female class, that was fundamentally random, and not inherent to the
> semantics. Linguists want a name that reflects that semantic
> randomness when comparing languages across language families.
> Linguists are also happy with calling things gender within a language
> that has 2 or 3 grammatical noun classes. From that perspective gender
> is a specific kind of grammatical nounclass.
>
> ...

This is the kind of answer for which I was looking. You make an  
attempt to speculate about the oddities, some of which (notably -SIS)  
endings have a degree of logic behind them. Then you admit that this  
is all speculation. You even indicate that our problem is that we  
were not on the scene when the choices were made. Most importantly,  
you conclude that the linguists want a name that reflects the  
randomness. One thing that you have not addressed is the persistence  
of grammatical gender matching natural gender for key concepts like  
man or woman. If you could show an inconsistency of gender for such  
concepts, that would be interesting, e.g. relevant languages where  
man is feminine or woman masculine. The variations for all the other  
words (I'm sure you'll agree that "tens of thousands" is hyperbole)  
can be viewed as unpredictable, and the fun would be in tracing down  
whatever reasoning or grammatical constraints led to the given gender  
choice. If you, as a linguist, are uncomfortable with these  
categories because they often don't make sense to us, and you think  
the oddities are far more significant than the matches, then that is  
a point-of-view issue. To take the same viewpoint I would first have  
to see randomness among words like man and woman, i.e. anything where  
natural gender is dominant. Then I would want to know if the  
exceptions are truly random, or can be explained. I'm not bothered by  
such exceptions, or by genderless objects that we would categorize as  
such, but instead find masculine or feminine in a given language.

>> 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.
>
> This isn't clear. I am having trouble understanding what there is to
> disagree with?
>
> Are we agreed that the majority of Greek nouns do not have inherent
> sexuality, but acquire it, as it were, by being placed in a specific
> noun class?

You are mixing terminology; nouns without inherent sexuality do not  
acquire it, they only gain grammatical gender. But that's a minor  
point. I think I've answered your question. If you like, compare the  
situation to the theater of textual criticism, with the majority text  
is sometimes advocated because of the sheer number of extant  
manuscripts. The other side is concerned instead with the weight of  
individual manuscripts and factors of distribution. Hardly a true  
analogy, just an illustration. The number of instances where a  
neutral item is classified as masculine or feminine (or a variation  
on them) does not interest me. It could just as well be ten or  
twenty. The persistence of agreement for words referring to  
dominantly masculine or feminine items is paramount, and the  
challenge in dealing with the rest is to determine what happened to  
them. Or to use a cliche, the exceptions prove the rule, unless you  
can refute the rule. I don't see how you can, especially in the  
languages with which we are dealing.

Don Wilkins



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