Thread: Gender and Russian verbs

Is Russian the only language that makes a gender distinction in the conjugation of verbs... Nouns, yes, but verb conjugations based on the gender of the speaker?... I have not seen another language that does that... Anyone know any other language that does so?

I am pretty sure Ukranian is the same, I heard that in Japanese you are supposed to even use different verbs or forms of nouns depending if you are an adult man speaking to a woman, of to a child, or if you are an adult woman speaking to a man and so on.

I

Those are both true. Japanese has many levels of formality, so you need to use different forms of verbs (or even entirely different verbs) in different situations, depending on context. Men and women's speech varies accordingly. There is no grammatical gender as such in Japanese though.

As for counting things, that's not such a hard a concept. English has lots of nouns that need markers to be counted. You'd say "two grains of rice", rather than "two rices", or "two sheets of paper" rather than "two papers". Japanese just takes this system to the extreme, where every object requires a marker. That's not to say, however, that every single noun has it's own marker. They tend to be associated with properties, for example small flat things (stamps, letters etc) will all take the same marker, or cylindrical things (bottles, pencils etc).

How about French?

Jean: Je suis all

[quote=adoc]How about French?

Jean: Je suis all

[quote=adoc]How about French?

Jean: Je suis all

I've heard about the complicated honorifics in Japanese, and Korean too... I suppose it's true, there would be some distinctions based on gender under that system... As to French and Spanish, I suppose, in very rare exceptions, but as Taty said they act a lot like adjectives too... Japanese, I also heard used to have an alphabet that only women used, peculiar...

je suis (I am)
tu es (you are)
elle est (she is),
nous sommes (we are)
vous etes (you all are)
ils sont (they are)

Any ryhme or reason to these? Nope, that's just the way the language has developed. Same goes for Russian. It has both grammatical gender, noun declensions, and verbal agreement. This combination necessarily means that verbs will reflect gender to an extent.

I heard Filipino or Tagalog verbs are peculiar too... Most of them are passive or seem so. And they are not conjugated based on person or number, nor gender like Russian, only tenses and aspects ... Pronouns act like adverbs to determine the person of the speaker...

[quote=TATY]All

Here's one: Hebrew

nyu page
brooklyn.cuny.edu page - difficult to understand

This is the conjugation of котэв - to write - in the past and present tenses with lots of pronouns that I have made up to represent the Hebrew pronouns:

я, яя -- "I" - masc. and feminine forms
ты, тыя -- "you" sing. - masc. and fem. forms
он, она -- "he", "she"
оно, оноя -- "it" - masc. and fem. forms
мы, мыя -- "we" - masc. and fem. forms
вы, выя -- "you" plu. - masc. and fem. forms
они, ония -- "they" - masc. and fem. forms

Present tense:
я, ты, он, оно -- котэв
яя, тыя, она, оноя -- котэвэт
мы, мыя, вы, они -- котвим
выя, ония -- котвот

Past tense:
я, яя -- катавти
ты -- катавта
тыя -- катавт
он, оно -- катав
она, оноя -- катваа
мы, мыя -- катавну
вы -- катавтэм
выя -- катавтэн
они, ония -- катву

I hope that's all as clear as mud!

[quote=adoc][quote=TATY]All