gender

[Sho Sakuma]

    Had there been any possible process of grammaticalization
that has dichtomizeted  the noun of the languages, belonging to
the branch of IE, into a label of gender as masculine or feminine?
...or adding neuter in a case. I just wondering what was the notion
to give the noun a subdivision with gender.

    It may be naturally assumptioned that the distinction originally
comes from a biological gender, but such illogicality that penetrates
a language, like a difference between German and French. For the former
assigns a label for the word indicating --moon-- masculine but the latter
attachs feminine for corresponding word --lune--.

    I have once presented same question in other list last year from a
very curious. One of those who gave me the reply with taking a example
from Japanese and reminded me a awkward point of the language. That we
count apples with the suffix --ko-, rabbits with --wa-, books with
--satu-, and Kentucky Fried Chicken with --piece-- is certainly seemed
to me strange feature of Japanese.

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 Sho Sakuma
 Kanto Gakuin University