Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Have a look at the following references:

Corbett, Greville G. 1991. Gender. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Corbett, Greville G. 2005. “Sex-Based and Non-Sex-Based Gender Systems.” 
Pages 130-133 in The World Atlas of Language Structures. Edited by 
Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, and Bernard Comrie. 
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Corbett, Greville G. 2005. “Systems of Gender Assignment.” Pages 134-137 
in The World Atlas of Language Structures. Edited by Martin Haspelmath, 
Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, and Bernard Comrie. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press.


The following references deal with Nunggubuyu, an Australian Aboriginal 
language:

Heath, Jeffrey. 1975. “Some Functional Relationships in Grammar.” 
Language 51: 89-104.
Heath, Jeffrey. 1980. “Nunggubuyu Deixis, Anaphora, and Culture.” 
Chicago Linguistic Society 16/2: 151-165.
Heath, Jeffrey. 1983. “Referential Tracking in Nunggubuyu (Australia).” 
Pages 129-149 in Switch-Reference and Universal Grammar: Proceedings of 
a Symposium on Switch Reference and Universal Grammar, Winnipeg, May 
1981. Edited by John Haiman and Pamela Munro. Typological Studies in 
Language 2. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Heath, Jeffrey. 1984. Functional Grammar of Nunggubuyu. Australian 
Institute of Aboriginal Studies 53. Canberra: Australian Institute of 
Aboriginal Studies.

Randall Buth's point regarding pronouns is covered in the following:

Bhat, D. N. S. 2004. Pronouns. Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic 
Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cysouw, Michael. 2001. “The Paradigmatic Structure of Person Marking.” 
PhD diss., Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen.
Helmbrecht, Johannes. 2004. “Personal Pronouns: Form, Function, and 
Grammaticalization.” Habilitationschrift, University of Erfurt.
Siewierska, Anna. 2004. Person. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Regards,
David Kummerow.



> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> Re: [b-hebrew] [B-Greek] Gender
> From:
> "Kevin Riley" <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>
> Date:
> Tue, 22 May 2007 12:31:30 +1000 (AUS Eastern Standard Time)
> To:
> "B Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>
> To:
> "B Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>
>
>  
>  
> -------Original Message------- 
>  
> From: Randall Buth 
> Date: 21/05/2007 5:05:45 PM 
>  
>  
>  
> My understanding is that there are many multi-gender languages with 
> Men and women together. Iver can correct me, since I never spoke 
> Swahili, but I think that people,men, women, and children all went 
> Into the same grammatical gender class. I speak a Nilo-Saharan 
> Language that is not only mono-noun-class, it is mono-pronoun with 
> One pronoun for he-she-it. 
>  
> Randall Buth 
>  
> *********************************
> Yes, there are languages with men and women in the same class - any language
> with a "human" class will do that.  I was wondering how common it is, and if
> there is any pattern to it.  I tried to find information on Australian
> languages with noun classes, but could not find that specific info.  As the
> genders are almost all [AFAIK] based on generic qualifiers [like the Asian
> classifiers] and some include a word for 'human', and some for 'human woman'
> it is possible that not all distinguish men and women in terms of gender. 
> Perhaps we cannot understand gender simply as a universal construct, but
> need to take into account how it arises.  One explanation of why all birds
> are feminine in one language was that birds are really the spirits of women,
> therefore all birds, whatever their sex, are feminine.  All other non-human
> animates, regardless of their sex, are masculine.  A division into masculine
>  feminine, neuter and edible non-flesh food classes complicates a comparison
> with Greek :) .  I still think the best course with Greek is to stress that
> grammatical gender has no direct relationship with sex.  
>  
> Kevin Riley