Grammatical Gender - Useful Roles of Grammatical Gender

Useful Roles of Grammatical Gender

Ibrihim identified three possible useful roles of grammatical gender:

  1. In a language with explicit inflections for gender, it is easy to express the natural gender of animate beings.
  2. Grammatical gender "can be a valuable tool of disambiguation", rendering clarity about antecedents.
  3. In literature, gender can be used to "animate and personify inanimate nouns".

Read more about this topic:  Grammatical Gender

Famous quotes containing the words roles, grammatical and/or gender:

    A concern with parenting...must direct attention beyond behavior. This is because parenting is not simply a set of behaviors, but participation in an interpersonal, diffuse, affective relationship. Parenting is an eminently psychological role in a way that many other roles and activities are not.
    Nancy Chodorow (20th century)

    Evil is simply
    a grammatical error:
    a failure to leap
    the precipice
    between “he”
    and “I.”
    Linda Pastan (b. 1932)

    But there, where I have garnered up my heart,
    Where either I must live or bear no life;
    The fountain from the which my current runs
    Or else dries up: to be discarded thence,
    Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
    To knot and gender in!
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)