From Greville G. Corbett's "Gender" (Cambridge Textbooks in
Linguestics), (1991);
Chapter 3, "Gender Assignment II: Formal Systems",
Section 3.2, "Phonological Systems",
subsecton 3.2.3 "Godie and other Kru languages",
pages 53 to 55, tables 3.5 and 3.6.
Godie has four genders and six personal pronouns (five of which are
vowels).
One gender is Human; it has one singular and one plural pronoun. The
singular pronoun is a single vowel; the plural pronoun is "wa".
Three genders are Non-Human. One is "mostly" Big Animate; one
is "mostly" Small Animate; one is the residue.
Each has its own singular pronoun; they share a plural pronoun.
These pronouns are all single vowels.
Definiteness of a noun is denoted by encliticizing the pronoun on the
end of it.
Except for human nouns,
any noun whose stem ends in a front vowel is represented by the
pronoun e,
any noun whose stem ends in a central vowel is represented by the
pronoun a,
and any noun whose stem ends in a back vowel is represented by the
pronoun o.
The pronoun used for a noun completely determines its gender.
So, a Natlang (Godie) does what Texperanto does, except from the last
letter instead of the first, only with vowels (not with consonants),
and with the vowels grouped.
-----
Tom H.C. in MI
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, John Vertical <johnvertical@H...>
wrote:
> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, tomhchappell wrote:
> >About your "ordinal affixes" idea;
> >Here is a quote from
> >
http://www.geocities.com/ceqli/Texperanto.html
> >where a similar goal is accomplished;
> >
> >The names of the letters are: af, bet, ce, del, ep, foy, gam, hac,
> >kap, lam, mim, nan, om, pi, qa, ro, sig, taw, up, vay, waw, xin,
yot, zed
> >They are used as names of letters, of course, and (since a trend
began in
> >the late 20th century) they are also used as anaphora, i. e. as
pronouns
> >that refer back to the last word that begins with that particular
letter.
> >Example: Me donis karno ad la leono. Lam manjis kap. (usually just
written
> >as "L manjis k.")
> >
> >Of course, Texperanto is not a natlang, but...
>
> Ah yes, Texperanto. I like the idea, but it clearly needs a few
more rules -
> like, what happens if a new word beginning with the same letter as
the main
> topic is mentioned? Can the topic override a sidetrack, or can any
> non-sequitur mention demand that the topic is again mentioned by
its full
> name?
>
> One solution is that the name could be mentioned to such extent
that it can
> be exactly identified. Consider a discussion with the following set
of
> topics (and their identifiers)
> horses (h)
> mice (mi)
> marsupials (mar)
> mammoths (mammo)
> mammals (mamma)
> If the topic of hamsters (ha) were brought up, horses would
become "ho". If
> marmosets (marm) were brought up, marsupials would become "mars"...
when the
> topic of mammals were done with, mammoths would became "mam" ... etc
>
> Still, this does not circumvent the problem that someone tuning
into the
> conversation midway through would not know what exactly is being
talked
> about.
>
>
> > > [snip]
> > > I also think "mixed singulars" could perhaps imply
> > > 2 persons, and "mixed > dual" 3 ("me and two others"). Does
this make
> >any sense??
> >
> >There appear to be languages where "I and thou" is singular, "I
and you
> >two" is dual, and "I and you three" is trial or paucal.
> >In other words, the "Inclusive" person (where both the speaker and
(one or
> >more) addressee(s) are meant) takes its grammatical "number" from
how many
> >addressees are included, not from how many people are meant in
total.
> >So, yes, I think what you propose makes sense; it's a more-or-less
> >obvious-in-retrospect generalization of something which actually
happens in
> >natlangs. (AFAIK, though, nobody ever thought of generalizing it
before,
> >and your idea is something that doesn't happen in a natlang. I'd
be
> >pleased if some other contributor could show examples that
relieved my
> >ignorance, if such it is, in this matter.)
>
> Good to know. I actually did mean primarily the 1st person cases;
with eg.
> the 2nd+3rd person pronoun, there would be no less than three
distinct
> "duals" of this form - one with two 2nd persons, one with two 3rd
persons, &
> one with two of both. This sounds needlessly complex to me, so I'll
probably
> skip the dual on such cases. The one-of-each form will still be
> grammatically a singular, tho.
>
>
> >What do you mean by "4th person", exactly?
> >
> >Sometimes "4th person" means "obviative"; like, "the 3rd person
who is
> >further away, as opposed to the 3rd person who is closer."
> >Sometimes "4th person" means "the latter", where "3rd person"
means "the
> >former".
> >Sometimes "4th person" means "a 3rd person (in a subordinate
clause) who
> >was a participant in the superordinate main clause."
> >And since I'm no expert, I'll bet there are others, because AFAIK
there
> >could be.
> >Which one do you mean?
>
> I explained this already in my first post on this topic, but the
distinction
> between my 3rd and 4th persons is such that a 3rd person is present
(can
> hear what is being said), but a 4th person isn't. So probably
closest to the
> first of your choices.
> Actually, I think it might be more obvious if I used the
terms "2,5th" and
> "3,5th": the 3rd person is used instead of the 2nd in one-way
communication,
> such as when addressing the reader in a book.
> Say, does anyone know if there exists a system to classify all the
persons
> more accurately?
>
> John Vertical
>
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