s. 275. The second element in the notion of gender, although I will not venture to call it an essential one, is the following:--In the words _domina_ and _dominus_, _mistress_ and _master_, there is a _natural_ distinction of sex; the one being masculine, or male, the other feminine, or female. In the words _sword_ and _lance_ there is _no natural_ distinction of sex. Notwithstanding this, the word _hasta_, in Latin, is as much a feminine gender as _domina_, whilst _gladius_=_a sword_ is, like _dominus_, a masculine noun. From this we see that, in languages wherein there are true genders, a fictitious or conventional sex is attributed even to inanimate objects. Sex is a natural distinction, gender a grammatical one. s. 276. "Although we have, in English, words corresponding to _genitrix_ and _genitor_, we have no true genders until we find _words corresponding to dominus and domina_."--The sentence was intentionally worded with caution. Words like _dominus_ and _domina_, that is, words where the declension is affected by the sex, _are_ to be found. The pronoun _him_, from the Anglo-Saxon and English _he_, as compared with the pronoun _her_, from the Anglo-Saxon _he[`o]_, is affected in its declension by the difference of sex, and is a true, though fragmentary, specimen of gender: for be it observed, that as both words are in the same case and number, the difference in form must be referred to a difference of sex expressed by gender. The same is the case with the form _his_ as compared with _her_. The pronoun _it_ (originally _hit_), as compared with _he_, is a specimen of gender. {220} The relative _what_, as compared with the masculine _who_, is a specimen of gender. The forms _it_ (for _hit_) and _he_ are as much genders as _hic_ and _haec_, and the forms _hic_ and _haec_ are as much genders as _dominus_ and _domina_. s. 277. The formation of the neuter gender by the addition of _-t_, in words like _wha-t_, _i-t_, and _tha-t_, occurs in other Indo-European languages. The _-t_ in _tha-t_ is the _-d_ in _istu-d_, Latin, and the _-t_ in _ta-t_, Sanskrit. Except, however, in the Gothic tongues, the inflection _-t_ is confined to the _pronouns_. In the Gothic this is not the case. Throughout all those languages where there is a neuter form for _adjectives_ at all, that form is either _-t_, or a sound derived from it:--Moeso-Gothic, _blind-ata_; Old High German, _plint-ez_; Icelandic, _blind-t_; German, _blind-es_=_blind_, _caec-um_.--See Bopp's Comparative Grammar, Eastwick and Wilson's translation, p. 171. _Which_, as seen below, is _not_ the neuter of _who_.