Idiom question

[Laurence Horn]

>Another example of such a semantic feature set is "horse":  It often comes
>up in the introductory linguistics course I supervise, and even my TAs
>don't always know the differences between colt, filly, mare, gelding, and
>stallion (and stud?).  (And if 'colt' is generic for M and F young, is
>there a special term for the male baby?)  So you see, all this nitpicking
>is relevant!
>
There is virtually never a special sex-specific label for the young of an
animal, because the sex of an animal before it's ready to breed is rarely
relevant; cf. puppy (vs. dog/bitch), gosling (vs. gander/goose), duckling
(vs. drake/duck), lamb (vs. ram/ewe), fawn (vs. buck [or stag--is there a
difference?]/doe), calf (vs. bull/cow}, piglet (vs. pig/sow), chick (vs.
rooster/hen).  But the case of horses appears to be a counterexample:
filly is [+fem], colt usually [+male].  I wouldn't be surprised to find
that some people take colts to include fillies, though of course never vice
versa.  (I'm from New York City, so I don't have any valid intuitions
here--they're all just horses to me, big'uns and little'uns.)

larry