Linguistic Categories: Interesting Thing of the Day

[goatgod]

Even though I do not speak French, this gender thing is something that always comes up when one speaks about languages...
Why is something a specific gender?
Why would one need Gender at all??? English doesn't have gender, KLINGON 8-) doesn't have gender...
I always shrug it off...

Linguistic Categories: Interesting Thing of the Day

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[ubykhlives]

One thing gender does allow you to do is to disambiguate more easily between pronominal arguments.

Je mets le livre sur la table. > Je le mets sur elle.
Je mets la table sur le livre. > Je la mets sur lui.

In, say, Turkish, you can't do this:

Masada kitapın koyım. > Onda onu koyıyorum.
Kitabda masayı koyım. > Onda onu koyıyorum.

It's true, you don't need gender, but then, you don't really need number either. Which is also something that Klingon already knows. :)