From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!cmcl2!philabs!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!sdcrdcf!trw-unix!trwspp!urban
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Title: Re: genderless pronoun
Article-I.D.: trwspp.23
Posted: Tue Apr 26 08:25:27 1983
Received: Thu Apr 28 03:21:00 1983
References: rlgvax.328

The problem with using, say, 'da' (the Loglan all-purpose pronoun)
is that it isn't only gender-free, but also lacks the implication
of being a personal pronoun.  In other words, it's no better
than using 'it' as a gender-free pronoun.

Loglan is unique among synthetic languages in that its pronouns
carry no semantic content (gender, personhood) whatsoever.  For
those unfamiliar, the binding of the pronoun is established by
the most recently mentioned nominal phrase; different pronouns
are used for second-most-recent, etc (unless this has been
changed since Brown's book was published back in '76).  I
consider this one of its Neat Features.

Esperanto, by way of comparison,  is quite sexist: not only
does it have the pronouns for 'he' and 'she', but the word for
'father' is 'patro', and the word for 'mother' is DERIVED from
this by adding a 'feminine' suffix: 'patrino'.  The word for
'parent' is 'gepatro'; 'ge' is, in effect, a 'neutral' prefix.
One wonders if the more militant feminist Esperantists use the
word 'gepatrino' to emphasize the point?  I gather that some
people have tried to introduce a 'masculine' suffix to the
language, but without success.


		Mike "collector of useless languages" Urban
		[ucbvax | decvax]!trw-unix!trwspp!urban