Why do some languages use gendered nouns? It seems to just add more complexity for no benefit.

  • Moghul@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    This is an off the cuff example. Yes you can rephrase to get around this. It’s just an example.

    The chair and the table don’t go together because it’s made of wood.

    The chair and the table don’t go together because it’s made(female version) of wood.

    Since you ‘know’ tables get female articles and such, you know the speaker is talking about the table and not the chair. This is how Romanian works.

    Yes, I am aware that singular chairs are male and plural chairs are female in Romanian which wouldn’t clarify anything if the sentence was “The chairs and the tables don’t go together because they’re made(female version) of wood.”