Re: Gender in Pronouns
Saul Epstein 
Tue, 13 Oct 1998 22:44:56 -0500

(Quotes Rob Zook: Tuesday, October 13, 1998 3:09 PM)

> Saul Epstein wrote:
     [...]
> > I've arrived at two solutions. The first is to create a fourth
> > category of distinction, something like "general sentient" which
would
> > refer to a person or people without specifying gender. The set of
> > affixes might look something like:
> > 
> >             sentient             | non-sentient
> >   -------------------------------+-------------
> >   general | feminine | masculine |
> >   --------+----------+-----------|      n
> >      w    |    l     |     r     |
> > 
> > The second solution is to allow the neuter to include sentient
things.
> > In other words, a hypothetical person would be an "it" just like
an
> > actual or hypothetical thing. A group of people of mixed gender
would
> > also be "things." So then we would have:
> > 
> >      masculine   feminine   (n)either/both
> >         w           wl            n
     [...]
> Well, I would favor the first solution, but I advocate keeping the
> current suffixes for masculine, feminine and neuter non-sentient,
and 
> creating a new suffix for neuter sentient.

At this point I'll come out into the open and say I disapprove of the
form of the original masculine and feminine particles almost as much
as I disapprove of the obligatory gender-marking itself. <wl> looks
too much like a derivative of <w>. I know that the derivation could
just as easily run the other direction, so that <wl> is prior. But it
bugs me nonetheless.

Suppose <w> and <n> were obligatory, the one meaning "sentient" and
the other meaning "non-sentient." Suppose further that <w> could be
optionally modified by the addition of <l> meaning "feminine" or <r>
meaning "masculine." That would preserve two out of the original
three pronouns intact, re-assign the third, and create a fourth.

> However, if that's unacceptable, I still think we should at least
> address the problem by modifying the meaning of the neuter
non-sentient
> to include sentients as well.

You mean, the second of my first two suggestions?

--
from Saul Epstein
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