GROUPLANG: Genders

Herman Miller wrote:
>
>If "person" is a gender, then we can't distinguish between two participants
>in the same action by gender. It might be valuable to have distinct genders
>for (e.g.) buyers and sellers, teachers and students, or other categories
>of people likely to occur in the same sentence together.
[snip]

I like that! But I'd use a division within each gender, instead of creating
new ones. Let us say three different inflections for each gender.
These could replaced demonstratives in this usage: one of them means
"the last [person/animal/thing etc.] mentioned", the other means
"the one before that", and the third one "the one before THAT". They
could cover the meanings of English "the latter", "the former".

When you use a pronoun inflected this way, you'll be able to distinguish
between three different third persons. If you inflect "nouns" this way,
you'll also be able to distinguish between three different buyers,
sellers, teachers, or students.


>>Evidence (for all PoS's)
>>
>>actually perceived (you saw it/listened to it/etc.)
>>indirectly perceived (i. e. by its effects)
>>hearsay (they told you about it)
>>hypothetical (you don't imply it's real or it happened)
[snip]
>I like these; how about "doubtful" in addition (possible, but you don't
>believe it)?
I agree on that.


--Pablo Flores