Epicene & neuter (Was: Re: The meaning of "ilicom" (perhaps hungarian?))
| From: | H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, May 30, 2002, 19:05 |
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On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 07:56:57PM +0200, Le cavallero wrote:
[snip]
> - it should (dare I mention that here? ;-) present some thoughts (like
> "unspecified" instead of "neuter" gender) on the market of ideas for an auxlang
> (please don't ask me any details about that, not on this list, at least)
[snip]
My conlang has a neuter gender and an epicene gender. The neuter is used
for all non-living things, abstract nouns, and genderless living things.
For gendered living things, the epicene is used when (1) the noun is a
collective noun that refers to both males/females (2) the gender of the
referent is unknown (3) the speaker is speaking in general terms and
wishes the statement to apply to both males and females.
T
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