3 ms·
One of the Twain's famous examples that language is full of exceptions and hard to learn is that the word for girl is neuter. However, that shows that he didn'
by usr1106 5y ago
One of the Twain's famous examples that language is full of exceptions and hard to learn is that the word for girl is neuter.
However, that shows that he didn't understand things all that well. Or the message was more important than the facts. While in general gender does indeed not follow much logic and needs to be learned by heart it's not true for this class of words. For derived words the gender is determined by the kind of derivation. E. g. diminutives are always neuter, and so is the word for girl, which technically is a diminutive, even if today's speakers don't see it like that.
- jan_Inkepa 5y agoSo right, if he knew more he could give better examples ('das Weib', a nowadays pejorative term for woman (related to 'wife' presumably) doesn't have that diminutive structure and is still neutral), but his point still stands? This feels like Gettier problem territory. :P > diminutives are always neuter I assume you mean to only talk about "-chen"-suffixed diminutives right? [ there are other kinds of diminutive construction in German that aren't neutral - e.g. -ling , Zögling, takes masculine ]
- xg15 5y ago> I assume you mean to only talk about "-chen"-suffixed diminutives right? [ there are other kinds of diminutive construction in German that aren't neutral - e.g. -ling , Zögling, takes masculine ] Which is even more fun as -ling is generally seen as more objectifying than -chen, even though -chen is neutral and -ling is male.
- wirrbel 5y agoAlso -ling is not so much a diminutive but more of a suffix for Nominalisation (Zögling stems from 'ziehen' [to raise],and refers to someone who was raised, Widerling from 'widerlich' [despicable], thus a despicable person, Schreiberling from 'schreiben' [to write], a Writer], Frühling from 'früh' early [spring]). Gives a somewhat pejorative connotation at times. The key misunderstanding here is of course that 'Genus' is not necessarily 'Sexus'.
- jan_Inkepa 5y ago[I'd like to acknowledge that my designation of "-ling" as functioning sometimes as a diminutive is a thing that might be debated for all the grounds given in this and in another comment, but I think it would make precisely nobody happy to pursue the matter further (while at the same time appreciating the points made, that do indeed give me pause)].
- usr1106 5y ago-ling is always masculine (I would not call them diminutives, you cannot form them from many words) -chen and -lein (diminutives) are always neuter, they can be formed from many nouns -heit and -keit, and -ung are always feminine I don't claim that the gender has logical meaning. But for derived words the rules typically hold (I would not be suprised if a few exceptions could be found)
- riffraff 5y agoI think your argument is somewhat invalidated by your last sentence: the world for girl is generally seen as a standalone word, and so it seems odd. Of course there is reason why is it so, but that is true for all oddities in every language: they made sense originally but as the new thing became the norm the origin of it is lost.
- kergonath 5y ago> the world for girl is generally seen as a standalone word, and so it seems odd. That’s the thing: language also change the way you see things. Native English people might find it strange for the reason you mention, but German people can find it normal, because it is a diminutive following the usual rules. It is not a “standalone word”: it is a root and a suffix. It is not an oddity at all within the framework of the language (which has its share of irregularities already).
- wirrbel 5y agoI am not sure that it is seen as standalone. Surely, one doesn't use "Maid" or other archaic terms from which "Mädchen" is the derived word. But to me I am aware that its a diminutive. If I speak dialect I also use the dialectal diminutive (Mädle). Of course to someone learning the language that level of understanding is hard to reach without immersion for years.
- q-big 5y ago> One of the Twain's famous examples that language is full of exceptions and hard to learn is that the word for girl is neuter. This is logical: "Mädchen" is a diminutive (as the prefix -chen shows). Diminutives are always neuter. "Mäd[g]dchen" thus simply means "little maid [Magd: maid]".