RE: Gender in pronouns
MDriest 
Wed, 14 Oct 1998 14:22:24 -0400

I think the first possibility would work better and I agree with T'Pel. I=
t
is more precise.
The chance that any Vulcan would stoop to verbal abuse is quite small, my=

Lady, but
the language is probably capable of it.

There is another possibility, T'Pel already told us, we could simply not
sort for gender.
We could make a distinction on grounds of something else. I thought is wa=
s
one of our
goals to create an alien language, so why not create something no Terran
language has?
In some way, I find sorting on male/female/neuter a tiny bit mundane. (No=

offense, my
ongoing admiration for the work that is being done here.)

Another idea:
- different stages of abstractness. This may need some work.

Does everyone remember Lyras' speech about abstract words?
We could have words in categories: concept (totally abstract), derived or=

semi-objective, and object.
C'Thia would be conceptual. There is nothing you can point at and say tha=
t
it is 'C'Thia'. It has no
practical relation with the physical world.

The Vulcan Academy would IMO be semi-objective meaning there is a real se=
t
of buildings but when you =

say "The Vulcan Academy" you still draw on a variety of objects for
defining what the Vulcan Academy is.
A derived word could be a word like "seskahlna" (made up), meaning a
'priests' staff'. There is an actual
stick or staff that would be objective but that's not all there is to it.=


'Plant' or 'house' would be objective as you can point to a clear thing.
When speaking of plants or houses
in a more general way, you could go back to using the semi-objective
pronoun, indicating you don't refer
to a particular plant or house.

This distinctions make sense in a language and culture where it is of gre=
at
importance to make clear how your
logical thinking precisely developed. In Terran languages it is often har=
d
to put into sounds precisely and
accurately what exactly went on in your mind. This is clearly not
desirable.

Greetings,

Sorahl