Re: CONLANG Digest - 5 Sep 2000 to 6 Sep 2000 (#2000-243)

Matt McLauchlin wrote:

> >You might say nouns and adjectives are zero-marked for gender in English
> >(yes, except on pronouns), but it's definitely there, even if it's only
> >natural gender and not grammatical gender.   Frex:
>
> That was the key... whenever people start talking about gender in English
> and relating it to things in French or German or whatnot, I have to sigh and
> explain the difference between natural and grammatical gender again... I
> think the cases of non-natural gender are sufficiently few and far between
> (ships, sometimes cars, and the semi-archaic third-person indefinite "he")
> that I am prepared to attribute them to personification, personification and
> a holdover, respectively.
>
> (Oddly enough, ships with men's names are still called "she".
I honestly think even this is something of an affectation.   I know I would
never instinctively call ships "she"s.

> >To lyanjenize foreign words,...
>
> I should have mentioned that in cases like Masiu Makláklan, the second name
> is treated as an apposite to the first one, i.e. it always is left alone in
> the nominative, although the first one can be marked for case depending on
> which declension it fits in
Right.  This follows the convention in many European languages with case
systems.   I was just reading the line at the beginning of the Iliad the other
day:

Greek:
    all' ouk Atreidêi                      Agamemnoni         hêndane             thumôi...
    but not  Atreus:PATRO:DAT Agamemnon:DAT  be.pleasing:IMP heart.DAT
    But for Agamemnon, son of Atreus, it did not please his heart...
                                                                    (Iliad I.24)

More or less randomly opening other books:
Gothic:
    Anastodeins       aiwaggêljôns    Iesuis             Xristáus,         sunaus         guþs
    beginning.NOM gospel:GEN.S Jesus.GEN.S Christ.GEN.S  son.GEN.S god.GEN.S
    [The] Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, son of God.
                                                                    (Mark 1:1, trans. Ulfila)
Latin:
    Stilponem, Megaricum philosophum [....]
    Stilpo:ACC Megarian:ACC philosopher:ACC
    Stilpo, a philosopher of Megara ....
                                                                (Cicero, De Fato, 10.15)

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Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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