"moist"

[Laurence Horn]

On Nov 9, 2011, at 12:01 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 1:00 PM, Hunter, Lynne R CIV
> SPAWARSYSCEN-PACIFIC, 71700 <lynne.hunter at navy.mil> wrote:
>> noun gender influences perception.
>
> Does this influence occur only in languages that have grammatical
> gender,

Yes.  It wouldn't be relevant in languages with natural gender only, so to the extent it applies to English, it would be demonstrated by those who have female/feminine associations, images, etc. for boats, corresponding to the (presumably arbitrary, on some level) fact that they're pronominalized by "she".

LH

> only in languages that lack grammatical gender, in any kind of
> language whatsoever, or does the question of grammatical gender even
> matter, as long as you believe?
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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