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Re: Apical pronoun in english?

From:Danny Wier <dawiertx@...>
Date:Thursday, March 4, 2004, 13:39
From: "Remi Villatel" <maxilys@...>

> I'm tranlating my conlang pages in English and I'm stuck. In French, I > created an apical pronoun, the neologism "iel". > > il + elle = iel [jEl] > elle + lui = ellui [ElHi] > son, sa, ses = (Unchanged because gender here applies to the possession.)
I thought _on_ already fulfilled that function, a gender-nonspecific first-person pronoun. Of course it doesn't have a pure genitive form, so _d'on_ would be used.
> What kind of neologism would create a native english speaker? > > he + she = *hes [his] > him + her = *hem [h@m] > his + her = *hir [hir]
I usually just say "one", and it's very close to the aforementioned French word (though not related -- isn't _on_ derived from _homme_ "man, human"?) I don't even like saying "he or she".
> I refuse to call my Aliens "it"! So? Native english speakers, it's your
job
> to create new words en English. What kind of word would you use if apical > Aliens land just on the lawn of the UNHQ and refuse to be called either
"he"
> or "she"? (Theorical hypothesis...) ;-)
I agree; "it" belongs to inanimate objects.

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Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>