Re: Gender in Pronouns Sorik of Vulcan Wed, 14 Oct 1998 15:48:17 PDT >To: vulcan-linguistics*shikahr,com,inter,net >Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 16:29:16 -0400 >From: Martina Luise Pachali >Subject: Gender in Pronouns >Reply-To: vulcan-linguistics*shikahr,com,inter,net > > >Saul Epstein wrote: >>The chief advantage to the first solution seems to be that it allows >>greater precision. The chief advantage to the second solution seems to >>be that we don't have to adopt any surface changes, only a change in >>the way the surface is understood.< > >Definitely, the first version would work better, if there has to be any >grammatical gender at all. I know several Terran languages (e,g. Finnish = >or >Japanese) that do very well without. And distinguishing between sentient= > >and non-sentient would make much more sense. Finnish does it this way, an= >d >it works fine. If for some reason you need to be offensive, you just use >the non-sentient pronons for a person... > >T'Pel Japanese sort of has gender pronouns, at least in the written language. In the kanji for "Younger sister", "oler sister", and some others that label a person as some form of female, there is the kanji for "woman", so there is still gender labeling, just not "he", "she" and so forth. Also, when you say "Peter studies Japanese", and then you say, "Eats fruit", you are very strongly implying "He eats fruit". Sorik ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www,hotmail,com