Re: [b-greek] Gender...What!?

From: Jonathan Robie (Jonathan.Robie@SoftwareAG-USA.com)
Date: Tue Mar 27 2001 - 17:43:25 EST


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At 01:32 PM 3/27/2001 -0700, Wayne Leman wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>It is the same with Greek. Words for biologically feminine entities (woman,<br>
girl, etc.) are grammatically feminine, and words for biologically masculine<br>
entities are grammatically masculine. But then there are many words for<br>
entities which have no biological gender which get assigned gender<br>
arbitrarily. At that point gender is simply grammatical, just as you<br>
correctly learned. </blockquote><br>
Even biologically feminine entities may become neuter in the face of grammatical laws. For instance, a child, PAIS, may be either masculine or feminine, depending on the child in question, but if you add a diminutive ending to the child, making it a little PAIDION, then the gender becomes neutral - but have no fear, this is purely grammatical, and no children were harmed in making this grammatical form.<br>
<br>
Are there any good examples of a feminine noun for something that is biologically masculine, or vice versa? <br>
<br>
Jonathan</html>



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