Re: Láadan and woman's speak

Carlos Thompson wrote:
> Well. English has now-a-days and important classification system in its
> grammar: count and mass nouns.
You could even go so far as to say that English has FOUR genders, but
very restricted in their effect, showing up only in determining the
"multitude adjective" and pronouns.  They are:

1.  Masculine - uses "he" and "many"
2.  Feminine - uses "she" and "many"
3.  Neuter-Count - uses "it" and "many"
4.  Neuter-Mass - uses "it" and "much"

> How long until this clasification will count as a gender system?
Depends on your definition of "gender system".  By the strictest
definition, it already is; the strictest definition of "gender" is "a
quality of a noun which influences the choice of other lexical forms
[e.g., adjectival forms, pronouns]"; of course, most linguists use a
somewhat more narrow definition that would exclude masculine and
feminine, and possibly count/mass.

> Which further changes in the grammar would evolve if the distinction
> is not lost?
Hard to see, but I suppose adjectives could come to agree with it.
Possible development:

A red car     Many red cars
A red a car   Many red many cars
A-red a-car   Many-red many-cars

Thus, "a" and "many" would become singular and plural agreement markers
for the "count" gender, while for mass nouns:

Good water    Much good water
Good water    Much good much water
Good water    Much-good much-water

Thus, zero and "much" would become agreement markers for count nouns.
Perhaps pronouns might evolve as "an-it/many-those" and "it/much-those"
for count and mass genders.

Of course, today, "a lotta" seems to be taking over for both "much" and
"many", at least in affirmative declarative sentences ("There are many
cars" sounds slightly stilted, most people would say "There are [or
there's] many cars")

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