Date: 10 Feb 2001 15:18:52 +0100 From: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Gender in Indo-European languages Message-ID: <xzpy9ve8vub.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> In-Reply-To: Greg Lehey's message of "Sat, 10 Feb 2001 10:16:52 %2B1030" References: <20010209095838.E11145@wantadilla.lemis.com> <3A81DDC9.EF6D7D84@originative.co.uk> <3.0.6.32.20010207223155.009d42a0@mail85.pair.com> <20010208110159.E2429@lpt.ens.fr> <xzpzofxffa2.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <20010209095838.E11145@wantadilla.lemis.com> <20010209114704.A62359@lpt.ens.fr> <3.0.6.32.20010209085026.009e28e0@mail85.pair.com> <20010210101652.Q16260@wantadilla.lemis.com>
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Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> writes: > > Slovak does not need to say he, she, etc. Instead, it just uses the > > verb in the third person, and implies the appropriate pronoun. > This is typical of the slavonic languages, of course. Ooh, that reminds me. Finnish doesn't have gender. At all. It's been a long time and I don't have my TY at hand, but as I recall there are two third person singular pronouns - one for animate and one for inanimate objects. And in daily speech, the pronoun is usually contracted or even dropped - "Minä olen norjalainen" (I am Norwegian) is abbreviated to "Mä olen norjalainen" or even "Olen norjalainen". The interrogative form is indicated by a verb suffix, so there's no need for any pronoun there either even though there's no change in intonation: "Oletko sinä norjalainen?" (are you Norwegian?) can be abbreviated to "Oletko norjalainen?" because the -ko ending distinguishes it from the affirmative "(sinä) olet norjalainen" (you are Norwegian). (I don't remember capitalization rules for Finnish, so it's possible "norjalainen" is supposed to be written "Norjalainen). (this is partly from memory, partly from old handwritten notes, so some of the above may be incorrect) DES -- Dag-Erling Smorgrav - des@ofug.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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