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contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 41 (198934)
04-13-2005 10:55 AM


Sounds implausible to me, I'm afraid. I seemed to recall this was a feature of Indo-European languages.
Wikipedia provides:
quote:
Grammatical gender
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In linguistics, grammatical genders, also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once (Hockett 1958: 231).
Some languages have only one noun class, and treat all nouns in the same way grammatically. Most Indo-European languages have one to three noun classes, which are traditionally called grammatical genders rather than noun classes. Some Caucasian languages have four to eight, and most Bantu languages have ten to twenty noun classes. If one agrees that classifiers such as measure words also express noun class, then some Sino-Tibetan languages have even more.
Common criteria for distinguishing noun classes include:
* animate vs. inanimate (e.g. Ojibwe)
* rational vs. non-rational (e.g. Tamil)
* human vs. non-human
* male vs. other
* male human vs. other
* masculine vs. feminine (e.g. French)
* masculine vs. feminine vs. neuter (e.g. Latin, German)
* strong vs. weak
* augmentative vs. diminutive
In general, the boundaries of noun classes are rather arbitrary, although there are rules of thumb in many languages. The Algonquian languages have animate and inanimate noun classes, for example, and most Indo-European languages distinguish feminine, masculine and sometimes neuter noun classes. In many other languages, however, masculine and feminine are subsumed in the category of person, either generally, or only in the plural, as in the North Caucasian languages and some Dravidian languages.
Maybe there's a role for us proles in the juries yet, eh?
This message has been edited by contracycle, 04-13-2005 09:57 AM

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Chiroptera, posted 04-13-2005 11:19 AM contracycle has not replied
 Message 5 by arachnophilia, posted 04-13-2005 7:56 PM contracycle has replied
 Message 16 by macaroniandcheese, posted 04-20-2005 9:52 PM contracycle has not replied

contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 8 of 41 (200063)
04-18-2005 9:13 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by arachnophilia
04-13-2005 7:56 PM


quote:
not to make an argument of authority, but you do realize you're debating the answer given by a oxford professor of french, right?
Sure. But in this case, the professor is wrong. It happens. Thats why appeals to authority are unreliable.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by arachnophilia, posted 04-13-2005 7:56 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by arachnophilia, posted 04-18-2005 6:29 PM contracycle has replied
 Message 17 by macaroniandcheese, posted 04-20-2005 9:55 PM contracycle has not replied

contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 41 (200305)
04-19-2005 6:28 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by arachnophilia
04-18-2005 6:29 PM


quote:
wikipedia, vs oxford professor.
Embarrasing, isn't it?
Moral of the story: get out of the ivory tower. Facts count, sinecure does not.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by arachnophilia, posted 04-18-2005 6:29 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by arachnophilia, posted 04-19-2005 5:26 PM contracycle has replied

contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 41 (200635)
04-20-2005 5:02 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by arachnophilia
04-19-2005 5:26 PM


quote:
is that... ? wow! none of them! now, do you think these sources are more or less credible regarding french than some who's made their career teaching and studying french specifically, at possibly THE most prestigous university in the world?
the question was not about French - it was about the existance of gendered nouns.
Look, I don not understand what your issue is, nor why Shrafinataor frex is making snide remarks about Wikipedia. If you find it that much more convincing, I will call over to my freindly neighbourhood linguist*, Joe, with whom I shared a house for 4 years, and have him confirm to me again that Indo-European languages had gendered words that vastly preceeded the existance of Latin, let alone French.
Nobody has challenged the substance of the Wikipedia article, I note. Are you all speaking from ignorance or what? Sanskrit has gendered words - that is simply a fact. You could look it up yourself, you know.
The professor was mistaken. Deal with it, and quit the unqalified worship of Academia, as it appears that your opposition is purely based upon the fact that I relied on my own knowledge and was not intimidated by the letters behind the name of Brenna's friend.
* Also Oxford trained, for your information.
This message has been edited by contracycle, 04-20-2005 04:05 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by arachnophilia, posted 04-19-2005 5:26 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by arachnophilia, posted 04-20-2005 6:55 PM contracycle has replied

contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 18 of 41 (200888)
04-21-2005 5:51 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by arachnophilia
04-20-2005 6:55 PM


quote:
actually, the question that spawned this thread was regarding french in specific, and above it was generalized to romance languages. the question was where gendered nouns came from in french, and the answer was that it was a holdover from latin, and not applied in a way that makes a statement about the social gender-role of the object.
Right. And why did Latin have them? Why, becuase it is descended from Indo-European languages.
The statement that French has gendered words "because" Latin has them and for no other reason is true but only in the most trivial sense.
Brennas question at he top of the thread diod not mention French; and my response was that the response "the Romans dunnit" was implausible because the phenomenon massivley predates the Romans. Nobody has remotely contested this point yet.
We have not in fact discussed the Why question of the origin or gendered words at all. The professors response was a very poor answer to the question, merely pointing to a prior incident of the phenomenon - and not the earliest by a long way.
The answer "the indo-Europeans dunnit" remains more correct. Neither actually addresses Why.
quote:
oh, the irony.
Yes, the irony that real publicly available research was dismissed in favour of the contents of Brenna's address book.
This message has been edited by contracycle, 04-21-2005 04:52 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by arachnophilia, posted 04-20-2005 6:55 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by macaroniandcheese, posted 04-21-2005 12:53 PM contracycle has not replied
 Message 21 by arachnophilia, posted 04-21-2005 7:55 PM contracycle has replied

contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 23 of 41 (201129)
04-22-2005 9:27 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by arachnophilia
04-21-2005 7:55 PM


Re: do you just do this to be annoying?
quote:
you don't seem to get the difference between an encyclopedia article, and research. this guy is someone who has spent the better part of his life studying in the specific field of the question we wanted an answer. yes, the answer was sort of short-sighted and specific to the field. but that's the only answer we were looking for at this time. and his oxford educated opinion holds a lot more weight than an internet encyclopedia article that anyone can contribute to.
Yes, and they are still just one person, subject to all our human frailties. Wheras a public access source is implicitly and explicitly the aggregate view of a very large number of people, educated ont only at Oxford but also say, Cambridge, Yale, UCT, Wits etcetera bloody cetera.
Just becuase a source is COMMON does not mean it is invalid or mistaken unless you are a snob.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by arachnophilia, posted 04-21-2005 7:55 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by arachnophilia, posted 04-22-2005 6:05 PM contracycle has replied

contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 25 of 41 (202078)
04-25-2005 5:12 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by arachnophilia
04-22-2005 6:05 PM


Re: do you just do this to be annoying?
No
Listen
I didn't say an academic journal and a public resource were the SAME THING, did I?
But they may have the same contributors. That is precisely the virtue of an open, common resource. As I have demonstrated in this thread.
This message has been edited by contracycle, 04-25-2005 04:12 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by arachnophilia, posted 04-22-2005 6:05 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by arachnophilia, posted 04-25-2005 7:36 AM contracycle has replied

contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 28 of 41 (202122)
04-25-2005 8:21 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by nator
04-25-2005 7:52 AM


Re: Let me try something
Schrafinator, this:
quote:
IF you needed a liver transplant operation, would you like all the nurses, doctors, anesthesiologists, pharmacists, and all the other people involved in the surgery and your recovery (including the long line of scientists and doctors that came before who developed the techniques, the instruments, and the understanding) to have gotten their education from a Wikipedia-style university, where anyone, no matter the level of expertise, can contribute and teach a class
and this:
quote:
or from a university where every professor is highly educated and an expert in the specific subject they teach?
... are not mutually contradictory, are they?
WHO DO YOU THINK PUTS THE DATA IN WIKIPEDIA?
After all, the Wikipedia was CORRECT, wasn't it? It does correctly display the academic position on the topic, does it not?
According to your principle, getting information from a public resource like a library is implausible, and only word-of-mouth is reliable, yes?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by nator, posted 04-25-2005 7:52 AM nator has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by nator, posted 04-25-2005 9:09 AM contracycle has not replied

contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 29 of 41 (202126)
04-25-2005 8:28 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by arachnophilia
04-25-2005 7:36 AM


Re: do you just do this to be annoying?
quote:
quite the contrary. you did. "real publically available research" would be academic journals. not wikipedia. wikipedia is not even research.
Lol, thats right. And the book is not the reserach institute. Tell me something else I don't know. The map is not the terrain - that does not imply the map is innacurate as a map.
quote:
and more importanly, you ranked the public resource ABOVE a professor of the subject at possibly the most prestigious university in the world.
Yes, becuase the answer was inadequate.
And you are confirming my charge: you privilege the status of the institution rather than the accuracy of the information.
quote:
yes, at the cost of any hack being able to post [almost] anything. i will admit, the credit of your argument, that the patently idiotic article on "contracycle" did not last longer several hours. but that was to be expected from such a short article serving no real academic purpose.
Ha ha. Yes, and so what happens if you enter something that is contrary to the state of the art? Why someone who IS familiar with the state of art will correct it.
I'm afraid I did'nt see any such article, I presume you created one - the link was empty when I hit it. But yes, that does demonstrate that the low standard you ASSUMED because you did not have a prestigious institution or reseracher associated with it was hasty.
quote:
a further case of dishonesty. you have NOT demonstrated the virtues of an open common resource. i'm sure a case could be made, so, and i quote YOU,
evidence, please.
By all means. After all, the information was correct, was it not?
Funny how you seem less than hasty to dispute that point. Also telling that once again you refer back to a prior discussion about French that did not appear here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by arachnophilia, posted 04-25-2005 7:36 AM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by nator, posted 04-25-2005 11:45 AM contracycle has not replied
 Message 34 by arachnophilia, posted 04-25-2005 12:15 PM contracycle has not replied

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