Re: Another question: genders

epicene

David

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU]On
> Behalf Of H. S. Teoh
> Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 9:44 PM
> To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
> Subject: Another question: genders
>
>
> I've another question about terminology, if people don't mind... this time
> it's about genders. :-)
>
> Besides having a nullar number, the conlang I'm working on also has two
> genders in addition to the regular masculine, feminine, and neuter.
>
> One is what I'm tentatively calling "ambivalent", which indicates the noun
> is both masculine and feminine (simultaneously). Well, I guess I should
> say that gender in the language *is* directly linked to the actual sex of
> the noun, not just an arbitrary categorization (like inanimate or abstract
> nouns in Greek). Neuter is used for most inanimate nouns, while masculine
> and feminine are strictly used only for persons/beings that have gender.
> The ambivalent gender appears in words that refer to married couples, as
> well as in unusual nouns.
>
> The other special gender is tentatively called, for the lack of a better
> term, the "ambiguous" gender. It only appears in nouns referring to things
> that actually have gender (e.g., people). A noun in the "ambiguous" gender
> indicates one of the following things: (1) the speaker doesn't know the
> gender of the person(s)/thing(s) referred to yet, and doesn't want to
> presume anything (the culture is very sensitive to that); (2) the speaker
> is referring to a collective group of mixed genders (yes, the culture is
> very picky about things like this); or, (3) the speaker does not want to
> narrow his statements to one gender (did I say the culture is very
> sensitive to things like this? :-)
>
> In a nutshell, the "ambiguous" gender serves as a kind of "wildcard" that
> can "become" either masculine and feminine (but not neuter) as needed.
>
> Any comments/suggestions? "ambivalent" sounds OK to me, but "ambiguous"
> seems somewhat awkward. (It does happen to sound like "ambivalent", that's
> why I chose it in the first place.) I've seen a related word somewhere
> that uses omni- but I forgot the exact word. (omniline? ominine? anybody
> knows?)
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> T
>