Quick Question About Gender

[sangi39]

Someone on the Facebook group "Conlangs" recently put up this:

"A peculiarity of gender in languages:
La mascotte de Disney est une souris. Elle s'appelle Mickey.
L’adversaire de Tom est une souris. Elle s'appelle Jerry."

Now, I get the point that "elle" here is supposed to be referring back to the feminine noun "souris", but given that the natural gender of the referents is masculine, would "il" not be used instead? To take German and apply the same idea:

"Ich habe ein Hund. Sein Name ist Gemma" (masculine nouns, feminine referent)
"Da ist ein Mädchen. Sein Name ist Gertrude" (neuter noun, feminine referent)
"Da ist ein Maus. Ihr Name ist Hans" (feminine noun, masculine referent)

This really doesn't feel right. Would "ihr", "ihr" and "sein" not be used here instead, respectively?

A further question, since it might be, but does this sort of thing depend on the language, i.e. do some languages place natural gender above grammatical gender and do others always refer back to grammatical gender?

Thanks in advance

[zompist]

"A peculiarity of gender in languages:
La mascotte de Disney est une souris. Elle s'appelle Mickey.
L’adversaire de Tom est une souris. Elle s'appelle Jerry."

Now, I get the point that "elle" here is supposed to be referring back to the feminine nouns "mascotte" and "adversaire", but given that the natural gender of the referents is masculine, would "il" not be used instead.

Adversaire is either gender, so that's not it. You use elle because you're referencing une souris. But if you continue the story, you'd use il, referring back to Mickey or Jerry.

And yes, it depends on the language. Some language use semantic gender only, some mix semantic and formal rules. And there are interesting tricky cases where the agreement wavers between semantic and formal. E.g. Spanish su majestad 'his/her majesty' is feminine, and direct adjectives must be feminine (su suprema majestad), but if a personal pronoun is used it may be masculine (if it's a king).

[sangi39]

Adversaire is either gender, so that's not it. You use elle because you're referencing une souris. But if you continue the story, you'd use il, referring back to Mickey or Jerry.

Damn it, I'll edit that bit So it would be "elle s'apelle Jerry/Mickey", but you'd switch to using "il" later on? Interesting.

And yes, it depends on the language. Some language use semantic gender only, some mix semantic and formal rules. And there are interesting tricky cases where the agreement wavers between semantic and formal. E.g. Spanish su majestad 'his/her majesty' is feminine, and direct adjectives must be feminine (su suprema majestad), but if a personal pronoun is used it may be masculine (if it's a king).

Very interesting indeed. Thanks, Zomp

[hwhatting]

To take German and apply the same idea:

"Ich habe einen Hund. Sein Name ist Gemma" (masculine nouns, feminine referent)
"Da ist ein Mädchen. Sein Name ist Gertrude" (neuter noun, feminine referent)
"Da ist eine Maus. Ihr Name ist Hans" (feminine noun, masculine referent)

This really doesn't feel right. Would "ihr", "ihr" and "sein" not be used here instead, respectively?

All the constructions you put asterisks on are admissible. Only in the case with neuter nouns like Mädchen "girl" it would be more likely that people would use the natural gender pronoun ihr over the grammatical gender pronoun sein; especially colloquial German would be more likely to use ihr. In the cases with the animals, there are strategies to avoid the mismatch:
Ich habe einen Hund (m), ein Weibchen (n). / Ich habe eine Hündin (f). Sie heißt Gemma. Or: Ich habe einen Hund. Es ist ein Weibchen / eine Hündin und (sie) heißt Gemma. (The construction with heißen is more idiomatic than ihr Name ist).
Da ist eine Maus, ein Männchen. / Da ist ein Mäuserich. Er heißt Hans. Or: Da ist eine Maus. Es ist ein Männchen / ein Mäuserich und (er) heißt Hans.

[Thry]

Spanish being my L1, I'm not sure if when used predicatively you should say "Su majestad es muy vengativo." (Your majesty is a very vengeful person); but it's way weird to refer to a man with vengativa. In Italian, though, formal forms do take the feminine be it a man or a woman. (Voglio vederLa) "I want to see you".

As for animals:

Tengo un patito hembra. Es muy bonita. -> fine
Tengo un patito hembra. Es muy bonito. -> fine... maybe?
"I have a female duckling. It's very pretty."

Tengo una rata macho; es muy travieso. -> bit weird
Tengo una rata macho; es muy traviesa. -> fine
"I have a male rat; it's very mischievous."

I don't think either is ungrammatical in both cases, and it's hard to tell, but contextually any can sound weird. It depends on whether you look at the animal as a naturally gendered thing or not. Like, I don't care if a cockroach (el escarabajo) is female; it's always gonna be asqueroso.

[Terra]

It depends on whether you look at the animal as a naturally gendered thing or not. Like, I don't care if a cockroach (el escarabajo) is female; it's always gonna be asqueroso.

What things are considered 'naturally gendered'? Mammals and birds? But not insects, fish , and reptiles?

[Thry]

Animals you can have as pets and refer to as 'he' or 'she' without being looked at weird. That's, yeah, mammals, birds and maybe some reptiles and amphibians (pet turtles you're fond of, I guess this new trend with geckos and lizards could do it too... maybe snakes? toads, frogs) but not any invertebrate.

And people who are obsessed with, say, fish, could maybe also know the exact gender of each of their individual fish and refer to them genderedly. "Look, Ms. Bigmouth laid a million eggs today, isn't she cute? [even if the species of fish is grammatically masculine]"

[Pole, the]

"A peculiarity of gender in languages:
La mascotte de Disney est une souris. Elle s'appelle Mickey.
L’adversaire de Tom est une souris. Elle s'appelle Jerry."

Now, I get the point that "elle" here is supposed to be referring back to the feminine nouns "mascotte" and "adversaire", but given that the natural gender of the referents is masculine, would "il" not be used instead.

The same happens in Polish:

Maskotką

mascot.INS

Disneya

Disney.GEN

jest

be.3SG

mysz.

mouse

Ona

3SG.FEM

nazywa

name.3SG

się

self.ACC

Miki.

Mickey

[Chuma]

Could you perhaps clarify the original post by telling us which forms the examples are using?

Swedish, along with various other Scandinavian variants, has effectively separate natural and grammatical gender. The same dilemma does occur there, but becomes a question of whether you think of the referent as a person (having natural gender) or a thing (so you use grammatical gender). Lately there's a political debate about getting a gender-neutral person pronoun. Animals can sometimes be a borderline case - it depends on how you want to view them. If you hit a deer with your car, it's probably an "it", but Bambi is a "he".

[KathTheDragon]

Lately there's a political debate about getting a gender-neutral person pronoun.

But we already have one.

[Particles the Greek]

Lately there's a political debate about getting a gender-neutral person pronoun.

But we already have one.

Or two, depending on how you count them.

[KathTheDragon]

What's the other, then?

[Chuma]

I meant "person pronoun" as opposed to "thing pronoun". Pardon the impromptu terminology. So a gender neutral person pronoun would be one that specifies that the referent is a person, but without specifying the gender.

[KathTheDragon]

My statement still stands. English has a gender neutral (animate) 3rd person pronoun.

[finlay]

My statement still stands. English has a gender neutral (animate) 3rd person pronoun.

Your statement fell flat on its face right from the start, since he was talking about Swedish.

[KathTheDragon]

Then why did no-one say anything? *Grumbles*