Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 7/1/84; site wuphys.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ihnp4!mgnetp!we53!busch!wuphys!bsc
From: bsc@wuphys.UUCP (Bryan Coughlan)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.nlang
Subject: The closed class of pronouns
Message-ID: <300@wuphys.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Jun-85 18:46:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: wuphys.300
Posted: Tue Jun 18 18:46:10 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 12:39:47 EDT
References: <290@wuphys.UUCP> <678@sphinx.UCHICAGO.UUCP>
Organization: Physics Dept., Washington Univ. in St. Louis
Lines: 81
Xref: linus net.women:5565 net.nlang:2958

< It's 11:00. Do you know where your pronouns are? >

Mitch Marks:
>Bryan Coughlan suggests that the solution to the "he or she" problem
>is the creation of a new word, but acknowledges that it would be difficult
>for such a coinage to catch on.
>     The difficulty is not in the incorporation of new words per se -- after
>all, that much happens all the time.  But pronouns in English are a closed
>class (as they are in any language).  We don't resist new nouns or verbs
>or adjectives in the same way, because there are already so many, and because
>the corresponding semantic field is open.

     Let's take a look at the "closed class" of personal
pronouns:

		Singular	Plural

1st person         I             We
2nd person        You            You (Y'all!)
3rd person       He,She          They

     The third person singular is the only form without
a gender neutral pronoun.  Why should this be so?
Well, when the class was set up, women were considered
by everyone to be second-class citizens.  Thus, when in
doubt, the default gender was male.  Since then, things
have changed to the point where women are actually
considered to be first-class citizens (I hope!).  I
think that this is a big enough change in society
to open up the pronoun class to include a new one.

Mitch again:
>	In writing, 's/he' works pretty well, but I don't see how to transfer
>it to speech.  And in any case, if given a distinctive pronunciation it would
>run up against the closed-class problem, the slowness with which the pronoun
>system changes.

Me (from original posting):
>>My nomination ?  Zhe.
>>(The zh is pronounced like the z in azure)

     'S/he' implies "she-he" (to me, anway!).  Now, jam
that into one syllable. How?  Don't stress the first
'e' - "sh-he".  Run that together some more and
it comes out "zhe"!  How's that for a pronunciation?
     
... And since it can be pronounced that way, it might
as well be spelled that way!    1/2 :-)

>	My favorite choice would be to make hay out of a trend that's
>already happening anyway. 


>          Has someone left their book up here?
>          If anyone imagines that, they're crazy!
>          When someone speaks to you, look them in the face.

>	A big problem with this suggestion, I admit, is getting yourself to
>use it in your academic and professional writing, where a certain brand of
>standard English is expected.  If you wrote 'sher' it would be obvious that
>you've intentionally used a special form, with a special purpose; whether your
>reader likes that or not, still they won't think you've just accidentally
>slipped into substandard usage, as they might with 'they'.

     Well, I like 'zhe' better ... :-)

>
>If anyone thinks this is a wrong-headed approach, I hope THEY'll explain why.
>
>                --Mitch Marks @ UChicago 
>                  ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar
>

     And if anybody thinks I'm off-base, I hope
ZHE'll explain why, too!

-- 

Bryan S. Coughlan            ( Yes, that's right. My first 
ihnp4!wuphys!bsc 		two initials are B.S. ! )