Re: Pronoun systems, Texperanto, ANADEW (was:Re: Mixed person plurals)

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 23:34:56 -0000, tomhchappell <tomhchappell@...> wrote:

>Hello, Rex, and thanks for reading and writing.
>
>I have enjoyed what I have found about Texperanto, and would like to
>learn more.
Texperanto started as a cute idea for use in a novel, but now it's sort of captured my imagination,
and I'll continue to work on it.   The main differences from Eo are:

1.  No accented letters
2.  Rationalized and generalized correlatives
3.  Taking the relative pronouns out of the correlative table as such, and using the Novial 'kel'
system instead.
4.  Use of reversal (grana = big, narga = small) as a substitute for the opposite prefix in many
cases.
5.  Expansion of the pronoun system, as discussed, with a special effort to make them more
redundant.  Lack of redundancy in Eo was one of the biggest flaws, lau mi.
6.  Allowing for dropping POS endings in many cases.
7. An attempt to eclectically improve the vocabulary: Doing away with difficult
consonant clusters
(I know, a matter of opinion), and eliminating roots that can't be pronounced without POS endings.
Buko replaces libro, vodo replaces akvo, etc.

>--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Rex May <rmay@M...> wrote:
>> Interesting and surprising that the vowel-anaphora of Texperanto
>> would be
>> taken as gendered pronouns of some sort.  Of course, they are not
>> intended
>> to be such,
>
>Nevertheless, I think, unless I misread or misunderstood him, Corbett
>would say Texperanto has 26 (?) 'sub-genders' (probably not
>full 'genders') which are morphologically-based (as many are) rather
>than semantically-based (as most are).
>
>Sounds like Texperanto's main, full, 'genders' are semantically-based;
>two of them are even sex-based, male and female, while the third
>seems to have 'inanimate' as its semantic core.  I am not sure about
>Texperanto; do other words get assigned to these genders based on
>their morphology rather than their semantics, as happens in French
>and many other languages?
>
>According to Corbett, in most gendered languages, most genders have
>a "semantic core", together with other words which are assigned there
>because their morphology is similar; then there is one (or sometimes
>a few) gender(s) that contain the 'semantic residue', whose only
>membership requirement is that the noun not belong to any other
>gender.  However, some languages have some genders whose membership
>is determined entirely by morphology; for instance, what might
>otherwise be the 'semantic residue' might be split into two or more
>genders by morphology.
>
>Corbett gives an example of Russian as having masculine, feminine,
>and neuter genders; and each of them has animate and inanimate
>subgenders.  The subgender governs agreement of fewer things in fewer
>circumstances than the gender does; I don't remember the details, but
>he has clearly stated criteria for when something is a gender, when
>it is a subgender, and when it is an agreement-class that really you
>shouldn't concern yourself about too much when you are trying to
>think about 'gender'.
>
>According to Corbett, 'gender' is something about a noun that governs
>something about something else.  The first letter of a Texperanto
>noun governs the "initial-anaphor", if that's the term, used to
>anaphorically fill-in for it.  Since that's all it governs, it's
>probably a sub-gender instead of a gender (by Corbett's definitions
>and terminology).  Since it depends entirely on the form of the noun,
>not a bit on its meaning, it is morphophonetically determined rather
>than semantically determined.
>
>It may be surprising, but I think it's consistent.
>For me, the trick was to quit thinking of 'gender' as 'sex' and start
>thinking of it as 'agreement class'.
Well, sure. That's the reason for my futile crusade against the use of 'gender' to
mean sex in non-
grammatical usage.

>
>That divides the human species into probably 100,000,000 genders or
>so, since so few people 'agree' with so few other people.
>
>(Alright, so, that last sentence was a joke.)
>
>>  but are derived from 1. The Loglan/Lojban/Ceqli use of vowel
>> anaphora, and 2. the usage in several languages of initials to
>represent
>> words, usually people. "M. B lived in Paris..." etc.
>>
>> If you read further, you'll see that other third person pronouns
>> are available.
>
>> Er(i) for males, in(i) for females (sex, not gender),
>
>Really making Male and Female Subgenders of your Human Gender.
>
Sort of, I guess.  But I would tend to use them, as English does, on any sexed thing.  La dogero
mordis la dogino.   Fuco, in mordis er.

>Unless words like "Loer", "Loin", "Lieri", "Liini" (if these are
>barbarisms or solecisms for acceptable forms, please correct them for
>me) can be used with "my black tomcat", "my Airedale bitch", "my pack
>of foxhounds", "my mares" respectively, as antecedents?
>
As above, I'd use in, er on animals where appropriate.

>> and forms like lo, lu, li, lui,
>
>Your pronouns' basic gender system is Human vs Nonhuman.
>Lu -- Human Singular
>Lui -- Human Plural
>Lo -- Nonhuman Singular
>Li -- Nonhuman Plural
>(though your description makes "Li" sound like Inanimate Plural)
I'm thinking so far as lo as things and lu as living things, but I'm not clear on it yet, really.
>
>> and the same four prefixed with i, a, and o (here, there, yonder),
>
>Three degrees of demonstrative distance from speaker?
>
>ilo == this thing
>alo == that thing
>olo == the other thing?
>
>> giving at least sixteen more pronouns available.
>
>> So there's actually no need for further rules at this point.
>
>I think your rule of prefixing the initial-anaphor to what would
>otherwise be the pronoun; or, if you want to look at it the other
>way, suffixing the ordinary 3rd person pronoun onto the initial-
>anaphor; counts as a 'rule'.
Quite right.

>
>I think, together with that pronoun-compounding 'rule' mentioned in
>the last sentence, you would be correct in saying I, personally,
>probably wouldn't need any further rules to make use of Texperanto's
>pronoun system.
>
>> Texperanto's  pronoun system, I think, is as complete and
>> unambiguous as any  language's is so far.
>
>How does it compare with Fijian's 156-pronoun system?
>
Dunno.   Is that system helpful, or just a pain in the neck?

>> In a situation where:
>>
>> Petero kai Patriko donis plumo ad Penelopeo.
>> You likely would not say
>> P kai P donis P ad P.  You'd say:
>>
>> Lui donis P ad in.  Or
>> Lui donis lo ad in.
>>
>> And if there may be confusion between Karlo and kreyono,
>> they can be
>> referred to as K-lu (k-person) and K-lo (k-thing).
>
>Thanks for clearing that up.
>I think that neatly answers the problems John Vertical pointed out.
>
>It does cause me to wonder what happens to J-Lo in your alternate
>universe.
>
I suppose she's J-lo in English (still an enormous language), but maybe...J-Lop in Texperanto.