Re: Gender in language

In message <12hotid26aec0bb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Mike Wright <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

Whatever the reasons behind the origins of gender mechanisms, a likely factor in the survival of such mechanisms is the increase in redundancy--however slight--that they provide. Redundancy not only aids in perceptual error reduction; it may also increase processing speed. When I hear <yi4zhang1> in Mandarin, I already know that the upcoming noun is going to be something that is flat. When I hear <san1liang4>, I know that I'm about to hear something about three vehicles of some kind. (I don't mean to imply that I'm particularly conscious of this, but that my language processing mechanisms may be able to better anticipate the upcoming noun.)

How would that work with languages (e.g. Thai) where the classifier _follows_ the noun? The first time you hear the classifier, you already know what it refers to; subsequently it can be used as a kind-of pronoun to refer back to it.

--
Richard Herring
.

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