Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 December 18

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December 18

English = genderless?

Most English dictionaries do not indicate a gender for English nouns. Are english nouns genderless? Contrib raati (talk) 18:03, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

English nouns have no grammatical gender. There is a certain amount of gender agreement between pronouns and antecedents based on the natural gender of the antecedent. And customarily certain inanimate objects are referred to by gendered pronouns (e.g., ships are feminine in English). See Gender in English for more detail. 18:31, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Correction, ships are feminine in some people's English. --76.69.45.64 (talk) 00:03, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Are gendered nouns a minority in world languages or a minority? Contrib raati (talk) 01:08, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Check out: List of languages by type of grammatical genders - I'll let you do the counting! SteveBaker (talk) 02:59, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Ships - and for some people - cars. SteveBaker (talk) 02:57, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Also, "the enemy" is traditionally masculine (even though it would be feminine if you referred to it by country name). --Trovatore (talk) 03:32, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

As in "We have met the enemy, and he is ours" (according to some sources). And with respect to Wikipedia's notorious gender gap problem: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 07:28, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I wonder why English should be regarded as genderless. In my view, it should not, because it has three types of gender: Masculine (e.g. an actor, referred to by "he"), feminine (e.g. an actress, referred to by "she"), and neuter (e.g. a stone, referred to by "it"). Note that real genderless languages (e.g. Hungarian, Finnish and the like) cannot make any distinction between "he" and "she", just because...they are really genderless...

In my opinion, once a given language makes a distinction between "he" and "she", it can no longer be regarded as genderless.

Really, the gender in English is not reflected in adjectives and likewise (e.g. one cannot guess whether the noun following the adjective "big" is going to be masculine or feminine, although one could have guessed that if the word "big" had been translated into French for instance), but - so what? The adjective in English does not reflect the grammatical number either (although it does in French for instance), so does that mean that English does not have a grammatical number? HOOTmag (talk) 18:05, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

You are correct, English is not genderless, it has three genders, and mostly does not mark gender morphologically, although where it does mark it lexically it normally follows what is called "natural gender". μηδείς (talk) 18:22, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

So we agree that following the natural gender does not make the language genderless. HOOTmag (talk) 18:27, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

The original question was whether English nouns are genderless. In a few old-fashioned terms, such as steward vs. stewardess, the gender is indicated by the word. But both words' definite articles are the, not el or le vs. la. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:31, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

The definite article in English proves nothing, because it does not reflect the grammatical number either (although it does in French for instance), so does that mean that English does not have a grammatical number?

In my view, the nouns (e.g. boy queen or stone) do have a grammatical gender in English, because they cannot be referred to - by grammatical persons not fitting the grammatical gender of the nouns - referred to by those grammatical persons. For instance, if the noun "king" had been genderless, then English would have had no rule about whether one should have referred to the king by "he" or by "she" or by "it". However, we all know that English does have such a rule, which simply states "the grammatical gender of nouns (which is reflected by the pronouns referring to those nouns) should follow the natural gender". HOOTmag (talk) 18:46, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

List of languages by type of grammatical genders says English has no grammatical gender, just some gendered pronouns. Gendered pronouns don't have articles, except when being funny, as in "is it a he or a she", and even then, the indefinite article "a" is non-gendered. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:14, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

"Gendered pronouns don't have articles". Why can the grammatical gender be only expressed by articles or adjectives, and not by pronouns as well? The grammatical gender of "boy" (or of "enemy") is masculine, because it's reflected by the suitable pronoun "he". The grammatical gender of "girl" (or of "ship") is feminine, because it's reflected by the suitable pronoun "she". The grammatical gender of "monarch" (or of "stone") is neuter, because it's reflected by the suitable pronoun "it". HOOTmag (talk) 20:16, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

(ec)Grammatical gender usually refers to the gender of the words themselves, as if the objects they represent, are male or female. Obviously, humans indeed are male and female. hence the pronouns "he" and "she". But, in Spanish, for one, there is not necessarily any reason why, for example, "road" is el camino (masc.) while "street" is la calle (fem.). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:23, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

This only means that the grammatical gender in English follows the natural gender (e.g. an actor is referred to by "he", an actress is referred to by "she", and road/street is referred to by "it"), but why the hell should this mean that English has no grammatical gender, while it does make a distinction between the grammatical person "he" and the grammatical person "she" - not like Hungarian (for instance) which does not (thus being a real genderless language) ? HOOTmag (talk) 18:35, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

The original question was whether English NOUNS have grammatical gender. They answer is that they don't. So, in Hungarian, is there no way to indicate whether a person is male or female? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:39, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

In my view, the nouns (e.g. boy queen or stone) do have a grammatical gender in English, because they cannot be referred to - by grammatical persons not fitting the grammatical gender of the nouns - referred to by those grammatical persons. For instance, if the noun "king" had been genderless, then English would have had no rule about whether one should have referred to the king by "he" or by "she" or by "it". However, we all know that English does have such a rule, which simply states "the grammatical gender of nouns (which is reflected by the pronouns referring to those nouns) should follow the natural gender".

In Hungarian (and in many other real genderless languages), I can simply say in advance that Blah Blah is a "man" (or is a "woman"), but one cannot guess whether Blah Blah (about which I'm talking about) is a man or a woman, as long as I say nothing about whether blah Blah is a "man" or a "woman". The same is true for English, although it has other ways (e.g. grammatical persons) to inform whether Blah Blah is a man or a woman. HOOTmag (talk) 18:57, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

It depends on the source of the word. "King" and "Queen" come from Germanic words, which have grammatical gender in modern German der Konig and die Konigin. Even you didn't know those German words, you could tell their grammatical gender by their definite articles. "Monarch" comes from Latin and Greek, and while its roots may have a gender, the word in English does not. Regardless, the modifiers of these word lack grammatical gender. If you know nothing about English vocabulary, you cannot tell that they have a gender, because they all have "the" as their definite article and "a" as their indefinite article. In contrast, in Spanish the words el rey vs. la reina express grammatical gender, which is obvious even if you don't know what the words rey and reina mean. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:06, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

"Monarch" "Stone" (in English) is referred to by the pronoun "it", which proves that "Monarch" "stone" (in English) does have a grammatical gender: neuter !

The definite article in English proves nothing, because it does not reflect the grammatical number either (although it does in French for instance), so does that mean that English does not have a grammatical number?

In my view, the nouns (e.g. boy queen or stone) do have a grammatical gender in English, because they cannot be referred to - by grammatical persons not fitting the grammatical gender of the nouns - referred to by those grammatical persons. HOOTmag (talk) 19:13, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I will point out that English is an Indo-European language. Indo-European languages have historically had three genders for nouns. Some of them have lost the neuter gender entirely, and a few of them have had the masculine and feminine genders combined into a common gender. English has no grammatical gender for nouns, except that sometimes the underlying concept may have biological gender. English has the original three genders for pronouns. Hungarian is not an Indo-European language at all. It is a Finno-Ugric language. As a result, there are no underlying commonalities between English and Hungarian except that they are both natural languages used by humans. No one knows whether there ever was a very remote common language between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric. Nouns in English do not have grammatical gender. Things to which English nouns refer may have biological gender or may be personified as having gender. Singular third-person pronouns in English have gender. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:15, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Very important distinction there: Grammatical gender vs. biological gender. The word "king" indicates biological gender male. But it's not "der" king or "die" king or "das" king - it's the king. "King" as a person has biological gender, i.e. "sex". "King" as a word has no grammatical gender. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:24, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

If the noun "king" had had no grammatical gender, then English would have had no rule about whether one should have referred to the king by the grammatical person "he" or by the grammatical person "she". However, we all know that English does have such a rule, which simply states: "the grammatical gender of nouns (which is reflected by the pronouns referring to those nouns) should follow the natural gender". HOOTmag (talk) 20:03, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Bugs is right. Nouns in English have no grammatical gender. The referents of nouns, the things that the nouns (words) represent, may have natural gender (sex). It is that natural gender, or the personification of the things, that determines what pronoun is used. In the case of personification, English-speakers are not consistent, because the personification is not consistent itself. People who don't know that ships are feminine will refer to them as "it" and be corrected by sailors. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:13, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Please note, that I've wondered (from the very beginning) why English can't be considered to have a grammatical gender - along with the rule which simply states: "the grammatical gender of nouns (which is reflected by the pronouns referring to those nouns) should follow the natural gender". HOOTmag (talk) 09:19, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

"English has no grammatical gender for nouns...English has the original three genders for pronouns". Let's take French for an instance: One says (in French) "le livre" (=the book), but "la clef" (=the key), so the definite article (like the adjective) informs us whether the nouns referred to by it are masculine or feminine. However, also English has something informing us whether the nouns referred to by it are masculine or feminine: for instance: "My enemy is dangerous, because he wants to kill me". "My ship is dangerous, because she is broken". "My snake is dangerous, because it is venomous". So, while the definite article can give the nouns (referred to by it) the grammatical gender, why can't the pronoun give the nouns (referred to by it) the grammatical gender? In my view, the pronoun can ! HOOTmag (talk) 20:03, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

(ec)On the contrary, the masc. or fem. of a word is expressed in articles and adjectives. English has no such thing. If by "number", you mean "one vs. more than one", words like "these" or "those" are effectively "number". Spanish has gender and number - la mesa blanca vs. las mesas blancas, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:18, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

"the masc. or fem. of a word is expressed in articles and adjectives". This is exactly what I'm trying to challenge: why in articles and adjectives only? Why not in pronouns as well? The grammatical gender of "boy" (or of "enemy") is masculine, because it's reflected by the suitable pronoun "he". The grammatical gender of "girl" (or of "ship") is feminine, because it's reflected by the suitable pronoun "she". The grammatical gender of "monarch" (or of "stone") is neuter, because it's reflected by the suitable pronoun "it". HOOTmag (talk) 20:03, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm beginning to think you're confused about what "grammatical gender" means. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:06, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

In English, the grammatical gender overlaps the natural gender. However, this does not mean English has no grammatical gender. For instance, if the noun "king" had had no grammatical gender, then English would have had no rule about whether one should have referred to the king by the grammatical person "he" or by the grammatical person "she". However, we all know that English does have such a rule, which simply states "the grammatical gender of nouns (which is reflected by the pronouns referring to those nouns) should follow the natural gender". HOOTmag (talk) 20:16, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

In English, the noun "king", the word itself, IS genderless. The person it stands for is not genderless: It's either male or female (and, yes, there are females in the world designated as "king".) The terms he and she refer to the person who is the king, not to the word itself. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:21, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I've never heard of females designated as "king". Once I hear about them, I will conclude that "king" means "monarch". HOOTmag (talk) 20:33, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Google "female king" and you'll see a number of examples. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:55, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

However, this only proves that "king" and "monarch" are synonyms, but this does not disprove the rule "the grammatical gender of nouns (which is reflected by the pronouns referring to those nouns) should follow the natural gender". HOOTmag (talk) 21:00, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

There is no such rule in English. English nouns do not have grammatical gender. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:10, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I've never said there is such a rule. I've only claimed that you can't prove there isn't. Furthermore, I've never claimed English does have a grammatical gender. I've only wondered (from the very beginning) why English can't be considered to have a grammatical gender (along with the rule mentioned above).

To sum up: It seems like the only difference between us is about how the term "grammatical gender" should be defined. Your definition is probably as follows: "grammatical gender is a specific form of noun-class system, in which the division of noun classes forms an agreement system with another aspect of the language - such as adjectives and likewise, in a method not overlapping the division of noun classes according to the natural gender of nouns ". However, I omit the end of your definition (i.e. the words in italics), and stop at the word "likewise", so I suggest the following definition: "grammatical gender is a specific form of noun-class system in which the division of noun classes forms an agreement system with another aspect of the language, such as adjectives, and likewise". What can one substitute for "likewise"? Some people may substitute the articles (definite or indefinite). I substitute also the pronouns (as my suggestion / recommendation, not as my decision / command). HOOTmag (talk) 08:47, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm trying to come up with a sentence in which "monarch" is referred to as "it" - and I'm failing. Only in the plural would they get "they" - but there's no way of telling whether that's the plural of "it" specifically, or the plural shared by "he", "she" and "it".

Human given names are nouns, and they mostly apply to either males or females but not both. The exceptions are names like Kerry, Kelly, Kim, Hilary, Beverly, etc. Leaving them aside, would we say that John, Mary, Margaret, Peter, Gordon, Priscilla, Hector, Charles, James, Robert, Paul, Sheila, Vanessa, ...... are genderless nouns? I wouldn't. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:33, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

As for monarch, you are right. HOOTmag (talk) 20:39, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• I won't address all the above separately, just note that in my last post I differentiated between marking gender morphologically (e.g., the -o and -a of Spanish) and marking gender lexically (girl/boy, king/queen). English does indeed have gender, because not only does it show lexical gender, it shows pronominal agreement in the third person singular. You can't call the king "it", the queen "him" or the atmosphere "her" without your remark being taken as showing an odd markedness.

Having noun classes is pretty common worldwide, I would guess between one and two thirds of the world's languages have them off the top of my head, and a masculine versus feminine or an animate versus inanimate distinction will be the most common. Johanna Nichols will be the go-to source for this, although I don't have her work right in front of me. English retains a trace of the late PIE three gender system in its personal pronouns, and an even older animate/inanimate distinction with he/it, who/what. (In fact, I am not sure that there are any IE languages that have a masculine/feminine distinction in the word "who".) Also, -ess, and -tor versus -trix are lexical derivational suffixes, not morphological ones like plural -s.

In any case, English does retain the vestiges of gender, and what was once somehwta arbitrary grammatical gender has been reduced mostly to "natural gender". Consider why it is okay to call a dog or a baby it before you know its actual sex, but a serious faux pas afterwards. μηδείς (talk) 01:06, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Following the idea of "natural" gender, a duke would always have to be male and a duchess would always have to be female. Yet Queen ERII is titled the "Duke" of Normandy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:51, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Is she now? Intersting. I don't doutcha, but do we have a source (with an explanation)? Ah--is it the Law Salic? μηδείς (talk) 02:33, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

She is also the Duke of Lancaster and the Lord of Mann. Rmhermen (talk) 03:41, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

These are just titles that nobody bothered yet to feminize. These are indeed some Salic Law remains. Some fool could use these to dispute Queen Elizabeth's leadership, and of course he would be ruled wrong and Queen Elizabeth would be confirmed in her leadership. And someone would perhaps point that it's about time to feminize these leadership nouns that we got from the "salic past". Akseli9 (talk) 09:18, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I heard somewhere (I believe it was a TV documentary) about a decade or more ago, that either Anglo-Frisian or Old Norse (but could be Proto-Germanic) didn't have personal pronouns. I've been unable to find anything with a Google search, but that every person was called "man", hence why man is used collectively for all humans. From that I made an educated guess as a kid, that "woman" most likely derives from their terms for a fellow human that has a womb (or belly, as it originally meant, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/womb#Etymology). I know now this is likely untrue, but I'm sure it has some weight etymologically, if not linguistically. Anyone heard anything similar? Uamaol (talk) 00:36, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Can a gendered language become a genderless language?

Following the interesting discussion above, my question is about any language in general, and about English language in particular. As was reminded/confirmed above, English and the other Indo-European languages are genuinely gendered languages, as opposed to Finno-Ugric languages which are genderless languages. Is it so that English is somehow "losing its genderness" while losing its gendered articles? Is it so that English will also lose its gendered pronouns some day? Thanks. Akseli9 (talk) 10:06, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Only if we get to the point where there is only one sex. English does not have grammatical gender. It has some words which typically identify the sex of the person it's describing, but that's not grammatical gender. And some of those usages are phasing out. Like "flight attendant" vs. steward or stewardess. Like "actor" instead of "actress", in some contexts. Like "they" instead of the cumbersome "he or she". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:11, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

My question is precisely about that phasing out. Is the disappearance of grammatical gender a big move towards genderness phasing out? Did genderness phasing out "decide" the disappearance of grammatical gender as an efficient means to lose gender? Akseli9 (talk) 10:24, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

"English does not have grammatical gender ". As opposed to you, I'm not that decisive. There is another difference between us, which is about how the term "grammatical gender" should be defined. Your decisive definition is probably as follows: "grammatical gender is a specific form of noun-class system, in which the division of noun classes forms an agreement system with another aspect of the language - such as adjectives and likewise, in a method not overlapping the division of noun classes according to the natural gender of nouns ". However, I omit the end of your definition (i.e. the words in italics), and stop at the word "likewise", so I suggest the following definition: "grammatical gender is a specific form of noun-class system in which the division of noun classes forms an agreement system with another aspect of the language, such as adjectives, and likewise". What can one substitute for "likewise"? Some people may substitute the articles (definite or indefinite). I substitute also the pronouns (as my suggestion / recommendation, not as my decision / command). HOOTmag (talk) 10:51, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

While Baseball Bugs sticks to theory and seems theoretically right, why are all my instincts leaning towards Hootmag's view? Personally I have the same kind of "instinct" as Hootmag in my mother language which is French, where I can't admit there is no neuter (theoretically, grammatically, there is no neuter in French, still, instictively there is IMO. And IMO a language lives, a language is a living thing). Akseli9 (talk) 11:14, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Read Gender in English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:30, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Chapter 3 of this article, titled Modern [English]: "this child is eating its dinner"? Really??? "This person is eating its dinner"? "This school teacher is eating its dinner"? "This fighter pilot is eating its dinner"? "This nurse is eating its dinner"? Akseli9 (talk) 12:22, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

That's unsourced and looks like OR. You don't say "it" unless you don't know the sex. Hence the expressions regarding a newborn, "It's a boy" or "It's a girl". At the start of the sentence, you don't know. By the end of the sentence, you do. Or you avoid the redundancy of "he's a boy" or "she's a girl". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:00, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

If English were ever to lose the (natural) gender distinction in its pronouns, it almost certainly wouldn't happen in this way, with speakers simply substituting the one pronoun form for the other. What might happen though: (a) through some phonological process, pronoun forms happen to merge into one (imagine a process of weakening of initial consonants in unstressed sentence-initial words, which would lead to "he" and "she" both falling together in something like [i]); and/or (b) through a renewed process of grammaticalization, speakers develop a habit of using demonstratives rather than traditional pronouns, e.g. "that one" instead of "he", grammaticalizing them into a new pronoun set. That new pronoun set would then end up being genderless. Neither of these scenarios is likely to happen any time soon, say within the next century of two, but either of them would be a distinct possibility in the long run. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:53, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

• I have removed the "the teacher eats its dinner" part mentioned above. See the famous "It puts the lotion on its skin." μηδείς (talk) 20:31, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

When the sex is unknown, in addition to 'it' there's also the curious usage of 'them' and 'their', as in the following exchange. Secretary to manager: "Mr Adams, there's a call for you on line 4." Adams: "I'm too busy. Take their number and tell them I'll call them back." These would normally be 'his/her' and 'him/her', but here the plural is used in both cases because English lacks a word for the indefinite sex. Akld guy (talk) 20:44, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Singular they. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:56, 20 December 2015 (UTC)