Re:Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What ...
by asveikau on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @01:56PM
(#20394698)
Well, afaik English used to have 3 genders for nouns, and it died out everywhere but for third person pronouns.
There are some languages that don't have gender for pronouns, even.
Or some languages that have 2 genders for most things but 3 genders for pronouns (eg. Spanish distinguishes between este and esto because Latin distinguished between iste and istud, but most masculine/neuter contrasts of -us vs. -um did not survive their final consonants no longer being pronounced. Whether or not a language retains such a distinction can appear highly coincidental in the face of such seemingly unrelated phonetic changes.)
There are some languages that don't have gender for pronouns, even.
Or some languages that have 2 genders for most things but 3 genders for pronouns (eg. Spanish distinguishes between este and esto because Latin distinguished between iste and istud, but most masculine/neuter contrasts of -us vs. -um did not survive their final consonants no longer being pronounced. Whether or not a language retains such a distinction can appear highly coincidental in the face of such seemingly unrelated phonetic changes.)