ІНДОЄВРОПЕЙСЬКІ ДЕНДРОНІМИ: “ДУБ”

Gothic <i>leiþu</i>, “strong drink; fruit wine?” and its Cognates in the Germanic Languages

The proposed article is devoted to highlighting the historical origin of Indo-European syntax in terms of grammatical features of Proto- Indo-European languages (Proto-Germanic, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Italian, Proto-Greek, Vedic Sanskrit, Early Latin) and ancient Germanic languages (Old English, Old High German, Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Norse, Old Frisian) in comparison. The aim of the study is to generalize the theoretical background of the basic linguistic aspects of sentence constituents of simple and complex clauses and compare their use in the languages under study with the determination of a common origin and distinctive features of functioning. The methodological basis of the study was the methods of general and theoretical analysis, the method of internal reconstruction, and structural analysis. This made it possible to conduct a thorough theoretical analysis of the syntax of the languages under study, to carry out an internal reconstruction of sentence structures, and to conduct a comparative analysis of Indo-European syntax. The main syntactic factors that influenced the evolution of the syntactic system of the Old Germanic languages have been identified and revealed. The crucial shifts in the Proto-Indo-European daughter languages occurred under the influence of three main syntactic rules of shift, such as scrambling, extraposition, and Wackernaleg’s law (the floating clitic rule) with the syntactic evolution from the SOV model to the SVO model not in all, but in some languages of the ancient period. It has been witnessed that the Proto-Indo-European languages had syntactic compatibility and similarity with the Nostratic macrofamily due to their syntactic interpretation as one that contained the branching of secondary sentence elements to the left of the main ones, as well as the initial, secondary, or final positions of the core constituents, due to the leading syntactic rules of the “floating clitic” and “right control”, which had already dominated in the syntax of the Protolanguages. The reconstruction of various SVO models of Proto-Indo-European and Old Germanic languages, with their definition as basic syntactic constructions of ancient languages, has been carried out. In the reconstructed simple sentence constructions of the Proto-languages of the Proto-Indo-European language family of the Nostratic macrofamily and in simple and complex sentences of Old Germanic languages, the basic syntactic arrangement of the core constituents of sentences as SOV/SVO/OVS has been revealed, which shows functional similarity of these elements between the reconstructed sentences of Proto-Indo-European and Old Germanic languages. The origin of the Old Germanic languages from the Proto-Indo-European parent language and its daughter languages has been proven on the basis of the affinity syntactic use of the core elements of clauses in enclitic or proclitic functions, namely the location of the auxiliary or main verb in the second or final positions of the clause due to the basic rules of light elements shifting (nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives) to the left/right of the verb.

This article contains systematic and detailed analysis of morphological and semantic parameters of Germanic preterite-present verbs, dividing them into major and minor subgroups. The development of both preterite-present subgroups and their steady transformation into the modal verbs is a specific feature of all Germanic languages. Since the modal verbs of the Modern Germanic languages are morphologically defective, it is commonly assumed that preterite-present verbs of the old Germanic languages lost some of their morphological features in the process of turning into modal verbs. The semantic aspects of this process are rather obscure. All Germanic languages were losing some preterite-present verbs in the process of transformation from the Gothic language, which had fourteen preterite-present verbs. In OE there were twelve preterite-present verbs. Six of them survived in NE. The morphological description focuses on the finite and non-finite forms of the preterite-present verbs, which belong to the minor subgroup. The detailed description helps to see the origin and development of the minor subgroup in the new light. The description encompasses the data of classical Indo-European languages and Old Germanic languages. The authors emphasize the expediency of turning to the theory of preterite/strong verb origin, the verbs in question may be regarded as inter-group, hybrid units. In order to gain insight into the origin of the Germanic languages it is necessary to look into the history of the Gothic and West Germanic and North Germanic languages. The authors find it useful to compare common and different phenomena, highlighting individual specific processes taking place in the process of development of the Germanic languages. These languages are analyzed on different stages of their development, but inline with the view that the languages co-operated and coexisted in the same area. The data given in the article are used to analyze the problem implementing comparative grammar tools. The authors were particularly careful to take all grammatical forms into consideration while working with the lexical units from the ancient sources. Some additional information was taken from Greek, Latin and Sanskrit to produce reliable and consistent comparison of the German language with the rest of Indo-European languages.

The article is dedicated to a quantitative (correlational and factor) typology of 31 language features (13 phonetic and 31 grammatical) as represented in 38 Indo-European languages and a corresponding differentiation between Slavic, Germanic, Romanic, Indic and Iranian language groups. The language features are grouped into 3 clusters: two contraposed “polar” clusters and an intermediate “medial” cluster. At the basis of the opposition between the two polar clusters 1 and 2 lies and a delimitation of “vocal” and “consonantal” language types, vowels constituting more than 30% of the phonetic system in the first case, in distinction to the second. The diagnostic features of Germanic and Romance languages pertain mainly to cluster 1, those of Slavic languages - to cluster 2. A further differentiation between Germanic and Romance languages is determined by the relevant role of the article, perfect, future-in-the past, diphthongs and long vowels in the first language group and the gerund, continuous tenses, nasalized vowels in the second. Indic languages are positively correlated with the Slavic group on the morphological level and with Germanic languages on the phonetic, Iranian languages correlate with the Slavic group on the phonetic level and are opposed to all the other language groups in their positive correlations with the morphological invariability of the noun, adjective, pronoun and verb. A general conclusion of the investigation is an ascertainment of a high degree of independence of the phonetic and grammatical systems of the languages concerned.

The research aims to explore the etymology and semantic field of the zoonym “cow” in the linguocultural contexts of the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic language families. The article analyzes the origin of the word “cow” in Slavic, Turkic, Romance and Germanic languages, identifying its core and additional meanings, commonalities and specific features. This analysis makes it possible to determine the national characteristics in the expression of knowledge about people, animals, and the world in mythological and religious beliefs by the native speakers. The scientific novelty of the research lies in considering the zoonym “cow” not only as a linguistic object, but also as a cultural phenomenon intertwined with history, mythology, religion, and human lifestyle. This zoonym is studied for the first time in a comparative aspect using data from Slavic, Turkic, Romance and Germanic languages, with the aim of identifying, analyzing, and describing national cultural features, similarities, and differences. As a result, the study proves that the etymology and semantics of the word “cow” in the contexts of the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic language families display shared roots, dating back to a distant past, and indicate profound connections between the peoples. Despite some differences among the peoples who speak Slavic and Turkic languages, such as national specificity of worldview, varying living conditions, traditions, history, and religion, the words designating the cow in various linguocultures are part of a unified history, connected to the use of this animal in human life.

This book examines the operation of laws, rules, and principles in the Indo-European language family; within this family, the book delves into the Celtic, Germanic, Italic/Romance, Armenian, Greek, and Indo-Iranian languages as well as Proto-Indo-European itself. Laws or rules are crucial to Indo-European studies: they constrain the reconstructions and etymologies on which our knowledge of the history and prehistory of ancient languages is based, and they allow processes of morphological change, semantic shift, and borrowing to be identified. Their relevance results from the recognition that p ... More

LITH. skelti, skelia ‘TO SPLIT’ AND skelėti, skeli ‘TO OWE’ – SIMILARITY OR RELATIONSHIP? Summary The article discusses the question of the connection between Lith. skelti ‘to split, etc.’ and Lith. skelėti ‘to owe’. Many linguists thought that there was no relation between them or it was dubious. They used to relate Lith. skelėti with kaltas ‘guilty’. Although the latter relation can’t be direct, it can be seen only in Indo-European parent language level. After the analysis of related words in Lithuanian, Latvian, Old Prussian and other Indo-European languages and after typological analysis the authors of the article make conclusion that there is not any morphological or semantic obstacles to relate verbs Lith. skelti, skelia, skėlė tr. ‘to split, etc.’ and skelėti, skeli (-a, -ia) intr. ‘to owe’. These verbs could originate from verbal paradigm (* skilti, *skela, *skilė ), which had split into several of verbs: a) Lith. skelti, skelia, skėlė tr. ‘to split, etc.’ (Latv. sķelt, sķeļu, sķēļu „to split, to cleave, to chop, to strike‘); b) Lith. sk i lti, ‑ia, sk y lė tr. ‘to break, to strike for making fire’ (la. sķilt, -ļu, sķ i ļu ‘idem’); c) Lith. skilti, sk y la intr. 1. ‘to split, to fracture’ 2. ‘to get into debt’; d) Lith. skelėti, skeli (-a, -ia) intr. ‘to owe’. The original meaning ‘tr., intr. to split, to fracture’ of the root * skel - is better preserved in Eastern Baltic languages (Lith. tr. skelti, skelia, skėlė, Latv. tr. sķe l t, sķeļu, sķēļu : Lith. intr. sk i lti, sk y la ). This meaning can be also reconstructed from Old Prussian derivatives scolwo „chip, shingle“, scalus „chin“. The embranchment of verbal root * skilti, *skela, *skilė continued in Lithuanian even after the split of eastern Baltic languages. Therefore the more verbs of this root have been formed in Lithuanian than in Latvian. On the other hand the meaning of status and variety of present forms may also indicate that the verb skelėti ‘to owe’ could be a derivative, but not the result of the word-transformation. There is not any structural equivalent of the verb skelėti in Latvian. The verb skelėti has been formed in Western Lithuania. It is corresponded by the verbs of various structures in Old Prussian ( *skel-ē-twei, *skal-ī-twei, *pa-skāl- ī-twei ). As the result of influence of German language the new meaning ‘to ought, to suppose to’ was added in Old Prussian. The meanings ‘to owe’, ‘debt’ should be considered as formed from the older one. The possible ways of this formation are these: 1) ‘to split’ → ‘to mark the debt by splitting, cutting (the debt stick)’ → ‘to owe’; 2) ‘to split’ → ‘to give by splitting off / to have what is splitted off’ → ‘to owe’; 3) ‘to split’ → ‘lack, crack, split, gap’ → ‘debt’. These meanings has been formed in Lithuanian ir Old Prussian. The most popular derivatives in Lithuanian is the noun skola ‘debt’ (which can be derived directly from the verb skelti , or from the verb. skelėti) and its derivative adj. skolingas ‘ owing’; the dialects also use adj. skalnas ‘idem’. The formation of several lexemes with different semantics from the root praes. * skel -, praet. * skol - / * skl- is also characteristic to Germanic languages (OGH skiljan, OISL skilja ‘to separate. to divide, to decide’ / go. skal, skulun, skulda ‘to ought, to owe’). The meanings ‘debt’ and ‘duty’ (: ‘to ought’) are tightly connected. However the meaning ‘guilt’ appears only in German languages and in the languages that have definite contacts with Germans. Because of the influence of Germans this meaning also slightly touches the Baltic languages. Nevertheless it should be considered as a new one. So, the attempts to cognate the verb skelėti ‘to owe’ with the adj. kaltas ‘guilty’ have neither structural nor semantic reason.

In contrast to the other Germanic languages, Gothic has two endings in the genitive plural: all masculines and neuters have -j (e.g. dagi, wadrd6, gasti, suniwe, attane, hairtani, brWfre); of the feminines, some have -e, some -,5 (e.g. qize, mahte, handiwj, badrge, but biud3, tuggWnr, managein3). The other Germanic languages have only one ending each: OHG OS -o (e.g. tago, dago), OIcel. OE -a (daga). This ending agrees with Gothic -a, from Proto-Germanic -5(n). The Gothic ending -e is unique not only in Germanic but in Indo-European. Until now no satisfactory explanation has been found for this ending, though many scholars have dealt with it. At first it was thought that -e might be derived from an IE -4m as an ablaut-form to -5nm;' but since the form with -j does not appear in any other IE language, this assumption is unlikely. Just as improbable is the suggestion of W. L. van Helten, that long -j received its vowel quality from the genitive singular of the a-stems and that thus a new form of ablaut was created. The possibility that -j5 became -je, so that the ending -e started with the ja-stems,2 cannot be accepted so long as such a vowel change is found nowhere else. Loewe maintained that Gothic -j could be derived from IE -em, which might be a contraction of -e-om;3 but a form that appears only in Gothic can hardly be derived from anything in Indo-European. Brugmann called attention to an important fact overlooked in all these theories, namely that in the i-stems the stem vowel is lacking before -e: we have qtne and mahte, not *qenj and *mahtje; gaste, not *gastj~.4 Brugmann himself saw in the Gothic i-forms a new use of neuter singular nominatives and accusatives of original adjectives ending in *-qo-m, so that barne originally meant 'Kindliches' and qene meant 'Weibliches'. This reconstruction is ingenious, as Jellinek has observed, but like the others it finds no support in the other Germanic languages. Most recently E. H. Sehrt has assumed that Gothic at one time had an instrumental-ablative in -j, which is supposed to have disappeared completely as a case but to be still reflected as a form in the genitive plural in -j.I Unfortunately, Sehrt was not able to prove that such a case actually existed. The endings of the genitive plural in the IE languages seem to have no single origin: Skt. -am, Gk. -W', and Lith. -4 go back to IE -i5m; while Slavic -z, Old

The purpose of this article is to give detailed description to all possible semantic and morphological features of Germanic preterite-present verbs. Some research has dealt with the problem of preterite-present present verbs; however, semantic and morphological functions of these verbs were studied only by singling out verb characteristics, peculiarities, potential possibilities in different Germanic languages without any alignment of the obtained results. There is little information available on preterite-present verbs within the west Germanic and North Germanic (Scandinavian) subgroups. Semantic aspect of these verbs was analysed by some scholars, but it is still unknown how these verbs were formed in other Indo-European languages (Baltic, Slavonic, Romantic). The contradicting point of the available research is how those verbs are reflected in Latin and Greek. In spite of the fact that preterite-present verbs were studied in detail in terms of phonological characteristics, their morphological and semantic peculiarities were not taken into account and compared. Special attention should be given to the functioning and correlation of phonological and morphological peculiarities of those verbs. This paper offers the results of a detailed and consistent analysis of phonological and morphological peculiarities of preterite-present verbs. The paper aims at determining the morphological characteristics of preterite-present verbs, which were formed under the influence of phonological processes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the connection of Germanic preterite-present verbs with possible sources in other Indo-European languages. The authors define a set of characteristics peculiar of preterite-present verbs semantics. The functions of these verbs are analysed in detail. The authors attempt to analyse the nature of these verbs. The attention is paid to the functions of preterite- present verbs not only in the Germanic languages, but in other Indo-European languages, too. The comparative historical method is used here as the main one. The authors see this valid way of investigation as reliable and appropriate for the preterite-present verb analysis.

Zajednica govornika mađarskog jezika je dolaskom na Panonsku niziju dospela među narode koji govore indoevropskim jezicima. U interesu svoga opstanka mađarski jezik je morao da se prilagođava indoevropskim jezicima. On je masovno preuzeo latinske, nemačke i slovenske reči. Nisu samo indoevropski jezici uticali na mađarski jezik nego je i mađarski imao uticaja na njih. Naročito je bio jak njegov uticaj na bunjevački i na rusinski jezik. Sa aspekta arealne tipologije, mađarski jezik se može svrstati među članove dunavskog jezičkog saveza. On je svoj karakter formirao prema stalnim vezama sa indoevropskim jezicima. U sistemu mađarskog jezika na svojstven način se prepliću tradicionalni elementi i indoevropski obrasci. Kao indoevropski obrasci tretiraju se priloške odredbe u funkciji atributa i relativne rečenice koje zamenjuju atribute. Takođe indoevropski uticaj pokazuje upotreba opisnog oblika za izražavanje budućeg vremena i zamenjivanje glagola sa nastavkom -hat, -het sa glagolom tud i infinitiva. Na vezu mađarskog jezika i indoevropskih jezika uticala je i činjenica da su mađarski jezik usvojili i mnogi asimilovani Nemci i Sloveni. Indoevropski uticaji na sistem mađarskog jezika ipak nisu bili toliko vdeliki da bi se zbog njih taj jezik promenio u indoevropski.

Dutch (and the other Germanic languages) and Greek (and the other IndoEuropean languages) are united by their common inheritance from ProtoIndo-European, which includes a shared basic vocabulary. Knowledge of the sound laws allows one to pass easily from Greek to the corresponding Dutch words, many of which are still relevant in these www. times. Even after the breaking up of Indo-European unity, cultural contact between these languages was reestablished, first by the great wave which brought countless loan words, loan translations (calques) and semantic calques from Greek to Latin, and later from Latin to the modern European languages, and then by the reverse movement from Western Europe to Greece. Thus the common inheritance from PIE, combined with the uninterrupted cultural contact since Greek colonisation in Italy, led to the formation of a common European vocabulary.

The proposed article deals with revealing the syntactic profile of the Old Germanic languages, name- ly, the particularities of the functioning of the syntax and grammatical framework structure of sentences with concessive semantics in the Germanic languages of the ancient period (Old English, Old High German, Old Saxon, Old Norse (Old Icelandic), Gothic, Old Frisian). The study aims to outline the models of syntactic structures of complex sentences with a subordinate / coordinate concessive action in four semantic types of concessive sentences with pure (concessive), conditional, contrastive, and causative semantics of con- cession across six Old Germanic languages. To meet this objective, a seven-stage methodology was devel- oped based on the use of interdisciplinary tools involving such methods as the method of internal recon- struction, comparative-historical, structural-syntactic, semantic, descriptive methods, analytical and syn- thetic analysis, and the method of continuous sampling. Based on the internal grammatical reconstruction of Old Germanic concessive sentences of various semantic types, three basic types of their internal framework structure with the governing position of the main V-finite verb in the principal and concessive (or subordinate / coordinate) clauses have been identi- fied as: 1) VXS- / VSX-model with a V-finite verb in the initial position; 2) SVX- / XVS-model with a V-finite verb in the secondary position; 3) SXV- / XSV-model with a V-finite verb in the final position. It has been de- termined that the syntax of concessive sentences with various semantics of concession in the dynamic syn- chrony demonstrates the functioning of the identified syntactic models in most semantic types of conces- sive clauses depending on the specific Old Germanic language. Common and distinctive syntactic particularities of Old Germanic concessive clauses are observed in six configurations as SXV / XSV / VXS / VSX / SVX / XVS with an emphasis on the initial / secondary / final slot positions of the main V-finite verbs in the principal and subordinate (coordinative) clauses. Common syn- tactic particularities are identified by way of the presence of the same syntactic slot position of the main fi- nite verb – V-initial, V-secondary, V-final as a mutual signal syntactic function or feature in all or certain se- mantic types of the concessive action in the ancient languages under study. Distinctive syntactic particular- ities are established by the absence of a certain syntactic slot position of the main finite verb – V-initial, V- secondary, V-final as a unique signal syntactic feature of the functioning of a certain type of a concessive clause in a certain Old Germanic language. The framework structure of concessive sentences is outlined in terms of the syntactic coherence between pure (concessive), conditional, contrastive, and causative concessive clauses and their corre- sponding main clauses within the concessive sentences as: “contact – distant” arrangement of the inter- nal framework slot positions of the clausal conjunction with “contact – distant” arrangement of the exter- nal framework clause allocation within the whole concessive sentence. The syntactic coherence of conces- sive / non-concessive conjunctions within clauses of concessive sentences is established as: “contact – dis- tant” arrangement of internal framework conjunction concordance slot positions with “contact – distant” arrangement of internal framework conjunction position within the frame. It was found that the contact clausal conjunction slot positions were common across all Old German- ic languages in four semantic types of sentences with pure (concessive), conditional, contrastive, and caus- ative concession. The distant clausal conjunction slot positions prevailed in Old High German sentences of pure (concessive), contrastive concession; in Gothic sentences of conditional, contrastive, and causative concession. The contact conjunction concordance slot positions are witnessed only in Gothic conditional and Old Frisian causative concessive clauses. The distant conjunction concordance slot positions were com- mon in Old High German conditional, causative concessive clauses, Gothic contrastive concessive clauses, Old Frisian contrastive, causative concessive clauses, and Old English causative concessive clauses.

In the Etymological Dictionary of the Old Church Slavonic Language , which contains 2,483 entries, the name Šimon Ondruš appears in 91 of them. Ondruš’s etymological interpretations are original, controversial, often isolated. The specific features of his etymologies, which the Etymological Dictionary of the Old Church Slavonic Language mentions, include in particular the application of laryngeal theory, the Benveniste model of the Indo-European root and the Schwebeablaut, in addition to the method of semantic parallels, the theory of the originally single phoneme r/l in the Indo-European proto-language, delabialization of Indo-European and Proto-Slavonic consonant groups. For a number of words generally considered to be old borrowings from Romance or Germanic languages, Ondruš preferred their domestic origin, explaining them as autochthonous words. Ondruš’s interest in Old Church Slavonic language was also reflected in the dictionary: for several Old Church Slavonic words, he specified their translation into contemporary Slavonic languages, including Slovak.

Grimm’s Law is a sound change which caused considerable divergence between Germanic and other Indo-European languages, and consequently, is responsible for certain sound differences between modern Polish and modern English. The text of the present paper concentrates on the part of Grimm’s Law describing the change of PIE *p &gt; PGmc *f and presents the traces of this change which are preserved in Polish-English cognates. Each example is accompanied by forms in Gothic and Old Church Slavonic and, if these are unattested, in other closely related languages as well as Proto-Slavic, Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European reconstructions. The paper reports on the initial findings of the research and focuses on cognates which descended from common etymons of identical phonological and morphological structure.

Evolution of Gender in Indo-European Languages Harry E. Foundalis (hfoundal@cs.indiana.edu) Computer Science and Cognitive Science Indiana University, Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition Bloomington, IN 47405 USA Abstract In a recent paper, Lera Boroditsky and Lauren A. Schmidt (2000) examined the degree to which the linguistic category of grammatical gender of nouns influences people’s perception of the cognitive category of biological gender, or sex. Their conclusion was that English speakers’ intuitions about the gender of certain nouns (animals) correlate with the gender assigned to those nouns in languages such as German and Spanish. More important, they found that people’s ideas about the putative biological gender (sex) of objects are strongly influenced by the grammatical gender of those objects in their native language. In this study I sought to reproduce Boroditsky and Schmidt’s results in order to show that the interpretation they supplied is unwarranted, and that the authors conflate the concepts of biological gender (sex) and “formal gender”, which is employed by most Indo-European languages (as opposed to “natural gender”, in English). I compare the intuitions of 20 American monolinguals with the statistics of formal gender as it appears in 14 Indo-European languages. Moreover, I discuss the possible origin and evolution of gender in such languages, and suggest an explanation for the relation between grammatical and biological gender. Introduction The idea that our native language may shape our thought, in part or in whole, is usually associated with the work of Whorf and Sapir, in what is known as “the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis” (Whorf, 1956). This is an intriguing hypothesis because it implies that different cultures — speaking different languages — may perceive the world in different ways. For example, whereas one culture may differentiate objects on the basis of shape, another culture may differentiate them on the basis of material (Imai and Gentner, 1997), and this may be reflected in the corresponding languages. To what extent, then, does language (and culture) force a person’s cognition to perceive the world in one way rather than another? A possible manifestation of this idea was examined by Boroditsky and Schmidt (henceforth B&S), in studying the way grammatical and biological gender interfere with each other in the minds of native speakers of languages such as Spanish and German. B&S support the idea that a speaker whose language assigns the genders masculine and feminine to nouns — whether they refer to people, animals, things, or ideas — is bound to subliminally think of an object as having a corresponding biological gender, male or female. (To avoid circumlocutions, I use the word “sex” to refer to biological gender, reserving “gender” for the grammatical category.) B&S’s proposal rests on the assumption that there is an inherent equating of the concepts of gender and sex in such a speaker’s mind. So, for example, a young learner of an Indo-European language employing “formal gender” could associate a specific category of nouns discernible only through the behavior of neighboring words (say, the feminine nouns) with a perceptual property of entities of the world (say, the femaleness of individuals), even before encountering the words for “feminine” and “masculine”. Although the latter point to a certain relation between gender and sex (which undoubtedly exists), we will see that such an assumption is untenable. First, however, we should briefly review the category of gender as it appears in various languages, in order to understand what it is, and what relation we may expect between the concepts of gender and sex. Although many people are familiar with gender as it appears in Indo-European languages, the notion of gender as understood by linguists is much more general. As a “definition”, I will follow Charles F. Hockett’s description: “Genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words” (Hockett, 1958:231). A characterization like this is general enough to encompass all noun categories that linguists call “genders”, whether they are labeled “masculine”, “feminine”, “neuter”, “common”, or even “class IV”. A language may have two or more classes of nouns that qualify as genders, or it may have none, in which case we say that the language lacks a gender system. Such is the case with several of the major families of Asian languages (e.g., Mandarin Chinese). Tamil, a member of the Dravidian family in south India, divides nouns into “rational” (i.e., people, gods) and “non- rational” (animals, and everything else), and further subdivides rational gender into “masculine” and “feminine” (Corbett, 1991:8–10). Thus, Tamil employs a “natural gender system”, which means that given the semantics of a noun we can predict its gender, and vice- versa. English, a Germanic language, has a natural