SV: RERE: Paired Horse and bladibla

Erik Seldeslachts erik.seldeslachts at RUG.AC.BE
Thu Nov 12 08:40:03 UTC 1998


Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> That is true.  We have only "de" (animate) and "het" (inanimate)
> words, even if the dictionaries still mark "de"-words as m. or f.
>
> But the problem is that the personal pronouns still make a three-way
> distinction (hij/zijn zij/haar het/zijn ~ he/his she/her it/its), so
> when a pronoun has to refer back to a "de"-word, and sexual gender
> does not apply, people are often at a loss which pronoun to use.  In
> general, little attention is paid to what the dictionaries say, and
> "hij/zijn" is commonly used, excepty for abstract words, which tend
> to be referred to as "zij/haar".  It's not uncommon for city dwellers
> to use the pronoun "hij" when referring to a cow.

Most Flemish speakers of Dutch know perfectly well the distinction
between feminine and masculine words and are seldom at a loss which
pronoun to use. Sometimes this a reason for them to ridiculise the
speach of the "Hollanders", who mostly no longer make this distinction.

Erik Seldeslachts
University of Ghent
Ghent,  Belgium





More information about the INDOLOGY mailing list