Corpses (WAS: Arabic article (was: Corpses))

Quoting Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>:

> >Isidora was speaking about how this thread, being OT, was the only one that
> >stuck to its stated topic. Now, this has mutated from a discussion of
> cultural
> >views on human corpses to one about the treatment of Arabic articles in
> >English ... we better watch out before it's back to conlangs!
>
> It may be too late for that.  I have already put conlang content into a
> post on the Visible Planets thread, which is an offshoot of the Corpses
> thread, by talking some about Nidirino phonology.
>
> I can't believe that I started a thread this extensive.  I just asked which
> logical gender a human corpse ought to belong to.  I think that my answer
> for the Cwendaso was epicene.  I don't think that the Trehelish lanuage has
> the same gender catagories as the Cwendaso language, so I don't know how
> they would gender one, although they do believe that there is something
> still living in it.
Most of my conlangs don't have the category of gender, and those that have it
restrict it to pronouns, except for Kalini Sapak. I suspect the word
for "corpse" would be neuter, but if speaking about a particular corpse, you'd
rather call it a "dead man" (or whatever )so you could refer to it by a
masculine (feminine) pronoun, at least if it was someone you knew. Or the word
might be masculine, since Kalini Sapak takes masculine as the default gender
of animates. I realize I have only the vaguest idea what the Kalana think of
the afterlife. But the soul is supposed to leave the body at death, so neuter
would, I guess, make the most sense.

In Tairezazh, which has gender distinctions only in pronouns, any old corpse
laying around is neuter/epicene _sen_ "it", while your recently expired
uncle/aunt is still masculine/feminine _seno_/_sena_. Intellectually, very few
Tairezans believe that a human corpse is anything more than lump of organic
stuff, but being humans their intellects are not necessarily the pieces of
their minds in command immediately after the death of a loved one.

None of my conlangs do have a word for "corpse" yet, BTW.

                                                         Andreas

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