Re: OT: Conlangea Dreaming

On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Dan Jones wrote:

> yún halí ri kabro:
>
> > YHL, who dislikes languages that care about sex/gender distinctions out
> > of habit
>
> ObConlang:
> Kansú has four pronouns in the 3s: masculine, feminine, neuter and
> non-gender specific, riú, rie, rio and rí. On the other hand, the plural of
> all of these is toi.
> Actually, the Kansú pronominal system is hideously complex. In the singular
> all pronouns distinguish masculine and feminine, the second person has
> polite, familiar and contemptuous versions (zyo and çyos are the contempuous
> versions, FWIW), and the 1p distinguishes inclusive, exclusive, masculine,
> feminine and mixed gender.
>
One of the curious facts about Denden (as spoken in the early 19th
century under Emperor Rordal) was the loss of gender distinctions in
the _singular_ third person pronouns (nearly all honorific grades),
while keeping the distinction in the plural third person.

More usual is the loss of a gender distinction in the second person low
and middle grade honorific plural.

In contrast, the affective pronouns show no gender distinction for either
first or second person singular or plural, but the third person singual
and plural are distinguished according to gender.

I can't really explain these patterns except by assuming that somehow my
source material is incomplete or faulty ;-). On the whole, gender is not
very important a grammatical category, being confined to the pronominal
system and certain gender-specific lexemes.


Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org

Gender: http://www.valdyas.org/andal/languages/denden/grammar/gender.html
Pronouns: http://www.valdyas.org/andal/languages/denden/grammar/pronouns.html
Sources for Denden: http://www.valdyas.org/andal/languages/denden/grammar/index.html#sources