Re: Gender (was: Homosexuality etc.)

En réponse à John Cowan :


>I don't think it does, any more than English or French does.  But the
>question of occupational nouns is more interesting.  German has a whole
>series of gender-marked pairs like Lehrer/Lehrerin, but not everywhere:
>we have Ingenieur, but not *Ingenieurin, AFAIK.  (If this example is
>wrong or obsolete, pick another.)  So if one refers to a woman as "der
>Ingenieur", the formal rules demand the pronoun "er" be used, and I
>think this is just about the point where Germans rebel even in writing.
>Evidently the Maggels are more consistent.
Yep. The only thing is that Maggel doesn't have all those pairs, nor even a
derivational way (even non-productive) to make a masculine, feminine or
neuter noun from a noun of another gender.

A funny thing with grammatical agreement is that the pronoun used to refer
to a single person will change in gender (and possibly other features, like
the edible/inedible distinction or the close/far above/far below/general
distinction) in the course of a single conversation depending on the noun
referring to that person at the moment (even if that noun is never actually
pronounced ;))) ). French and German speakers would rebel immediately.
Maggel speakers find it normal :))) (and carrier of plenty of nuances :) ).

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.