Re: Pronoun gender in Ikanirae Seru

On Sunday 30 March 2003 09:15 pm, Rachel Klippenstein wrote:
> In Ikanirae Seru, the third person pronoun
> distinguishes between 4 "genders" (Is it still called
> gender if masculine and feminine are not categories,
> or is there another term?).
>
> The 4 categories are approximately personal, animate,
> living, and nonliving, but it's actually more complex
> than that.
>
> 'Personal' |eki| is used mainly for humans, as well as
> any other personal being (God, angels, intelligent
> aliens, fairies etc.)  However, it is also used of
> languages, books and other works of literature.
>
> 'Animate' |aku| is actually restricted to higher
> animals, essentially vertebrates.  You would use it of
> a dog, a bird, a fish, a lizard, but not of a spider,
> mosquito or jellyfish.  It is also used for body
> parts, the sun, the moon, wind and water (at least
> out-in-nature water, like rivers, rain, the sea.  I'm
> not sure about tap water or the water in your glass.)
>
> 'Living' |sera| is used for lower animals and plants.
> It is also used for food, whether plant or animal
> derived, as well as for obviously plant/animal derived
> things such as wood and probably wool or leather.
>
> 'nonliving' |roha| is used for other nonliving and
> abstract things.
>
> Rachel
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
>
>
Jouevyaix does something similar:
3rd person sentient for beings that can talk and ideas (including words,
peotry, books, stories)
3rd person animate
3rd person inanimate

1st person, second person and 3rd sentient come in singular, dual and
plural
3rd animate and 3rd inanimate only have singular and plural

And demonstratives (which can be used instead of pronouns, especially in
subordinate clauses, if you add the right affixes) use more categories:
abstract, substantial/collective, inanimate, animate,
territorial/geographic, and sentient. Most of which may be marked for
definiteness, specificity, plurality, collectiveness as well as
location... lots of kinds of location.

I think Joueivyaix got its pronouns from one of its parent languages and
its demonstrative system from a different one. Though part of what
happened is that nominals lost their declensions when the early
tradespeech was a creole, and as things decreolized the markers went
onto the demonstratives rather than the lexicals in the noun phrases.

--
Elyse Grasso

The World of Cherani
www.data-raptors.com/cherani/index.html
Cherani Tradespeech
www.data-raptors.com/cherani/tradespeech.html

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