Pronouns. Both subjects (which in Spanish are gendered in the same places as English ones, but we normally do not make them explicit) and possessives (in our case they are gendered but match the object owned, not the owner). Also possessive articles (completely neuter for us).
Fucking. Pain. In the ass. Also the error I’m most likely to make, and I’ve only been speaking English for 40 years.
nm – you just answered, Nava. (Though I’d argue that pronouns are nouns, kind of. 
But I see what you mean about the difference and how it causes problems for speakers of a “more gendered” language.)
I enjoyed your explanation.
My plan was to write a question, not an essay. I started from a specific situation and included some examples.
Of course, but since I started learning English it has changed more than my own language has.
I have no idea, but chances are their language may have become more complex over the centuries to allow the types of expressions you have just quoted. I know Romanian has. Romanian, whose change seems to go very slowly with the exception of vocabulary, is both complex and complicated, and its numerous exceptions persist without being eliminated by almost any effort of simplification or standardization.
Thus, it is only natural that English should be prone to change because it is not only the native language of people of various nationalities but also the Lingua Franca for billions others.
Question: since mountains are continually being eroded by wind and water, and there has been ample time for all of the world’s mountains to be eroded away, why are there still mountains?
The analogy to language is clear: we notice an ongoing process of simplification from ancient languages to modern ones, and from earlier stages of our own languages to the present. Human languages have been evolving for 10s of thousands of years, so why are not all modern languages maximally simple?
This analogy is not mine, but that of Guy Deutscher whose wonderful book “The Unfolding of Language” deals with exactly this question. It’s an easy and highly educational read and I recommend it to anyone interested in this fascinating subject.
UY, my pleasure.
snoe, absolutely! Your Japanese examples are fascinating. Some of it I might consider a 21st-century extension of the “widespread literacy” I mentioned — but some of it is about the elimination/collapse of certain registers — in this case, multiple levels of formality. A great example of how broader cultural changes can be bound up with linguistic ones.
Yes yes yes, I’ll contact my lawyers.
In the real world, we do have rules for the use of language, even if they are not always observed.
You might want to read the book What Language Is: And What It Isn’t and What It Could Be by John McWhorter, which gives many examples of how languages with few speakers and little contact with other languages tend to have more irregularity than those with lots of speakers and lots of contact. If you know just some languages with more than a hundred thousand speakers, you have no idea how complicated a mess a language can be. The way I put it is that contact with other languages tends to smooth off the rough edges of a language.
Can you offer some specific examples of this phenomenon?
Indeed, I’m finding all the examples in this thread to be a bit abstract, whether it’s about English or Japanese or whatever. I’d benefit from specific examples.
Your use of “observed” here is quite interesting. You obviously mean that people using a language do not always adhere to the rules. But any linguist will tell you that rules are determined by “observing” how people actually use the language, quite a different meaning of observation.
But when it comes down to it, you’re wrong. The grammatical rules of a language are the rules that people actually follow when they’re using the language, not the rules someone else thinks they ought to be using.
Fun podcast on changes in English. In the last ten minutes, among other things, we see how “ass” can now be a pronoun!
Right. I was going to reply to that post, but you did it for me, and said exactly what I was going to say.
Well, I will add one thing: An academic field of study can’t be overturned with an “I don’t like it”, yet that’s all prescriptivists have to offer when faced with the existence of linguistics.
A: Whose book is that?
B: It’s hers, not his.OrA: Could you hand me the book?
B: Sure
A: No, I mean his book, not her book.
And what mistakes does Nava tend to make? And how is it different in Spanish? And what is a possessive article? The only articles I am aware of in a English are “the,” “a,” and “an.”
Correct.
Those are articles in English.
In languages like Spanish those articles can indicate possession and match the gender of the object they refer to. French does this as well, and I’m going to guess other Romance languages do, too.
Acsenray, I’m guessing you don’t know any foreign languages…?
In French, both la mienne and le mien mean “mine”. If you ask someone in French “which is yours, the peach or the book?” they can answer “la mienne” for the peach (la pêche) or “le mien” (le livre) for the book. La/le are gendered articles, corresponding to the English “the”. In English you can’t use “mine” with a gender to indicate which is yours, you have to say either “the peach” or “the book”. Unlike in French (and I’m guessing, Spanish) you can’t simply say “mine”.
So what mistakes, specifically, does a Spanish speaker like Nava tend to make based on these differences?
You’re wrong.
I was aware of that form in French, but I would not have identified those as “possessive articles.” The articles themselves aren’t indicating possession. I wanted specific examples, because I couldn’t surmise what Nava was talking about.
And I still don’t understand how this is an example of gendering in English grammar.
In fact, looking back at Nava’s words, I don’t think the examples you’re offering are illustrating what she seems to be saying:
A subject in English is gendered. Okay, so “he” and “she.” In Spanish, the equivalents are, I think “él” and “ella.” What mistakes does the difference in gendering cause a Spanish speaker to make in English?
This is clear to me, but I think specific examples would still be helpful.
This doesn’t match your explanation. Possessive articles in Spanish are neuter. So what mistake does this tend to cause when speaking English?
I’m not a prescriptivist. I’m a linguistic agnostic. Language is both mutable and flexible. But attempting to claim that rules don’t exist is frankly stupid, as evidenced by the fact that you can read this post.
Who Said that rules don’t exist?
I don’t believe that’s the issue, but if you spend much time with Spanish speakers talking in English, I think you’ll recognize what Nava is referring to.
Why wouldn’t you say, “Could you hand me her book?” This does not require further clarification. This doesn’t seem like a good example.
And the same “mistake” could be made in spanish. In “¿Podrías entregarme el libro?” The only reference to gender is that of the book, not the gender of who owns it.
The rules we commonly refer to as physical laws exist.
Who prescribed them? Who said that electrons must behave this way, and if they don’t, they’re barbarians who didn’t learn proper behavior in school?