Okay, I’ll repeat the subject line… Grammatical Gender… why does it exist?
For you poor monolinguals, what I’m asking is why certain languages assign the concept of “gender” to nouns, without regard for the feminity or masculinity (or neuter-inity) that the word represents. For example, in Spanish we can say “la computadora” (the computer) or “el lápiz” (the pencil), the former femine, the later masculine (incidently… who decides what gender are new words?). Germans say “das Fräulein” (the miss, the girl) that doesn’t even have the dignity of being a boy or a girl!
We don’t do this in English (the mutt of all languages). Everything’s neuter, except physical sexes, and certain affections (like, “my boat, she’s a beauty”).
Any insights?