Re: Genders (was Re: Láadan and woman's speak_

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> Robert Hailman wrote:
> > Definitely maybe. To me, and many people I know, the e- prefix smacks of
> > irritating advertizing and corporate jargon, beyond the word "e-mail".
> > I'd probably woudn't accept that sort of distinction. Of course, I'm not
> > the world, and it could very well become a gender distinction, though it
> > would take quite a while, I'd imagine.
>
> I really don't see it becoming a gender, perhaps a fully productive
> derivational prefix, but to be considered a true gender, there'd have to
> be some kind of pronouns or adjectives associated with it.  E-many
> e-mails?  ;-)
>
In a few hundred years, maybe. We really have no way of knowing. It does
seem very odd to me, though. Maybe the same distinction would be
expressed differently. It doesn't have to be regular between adjectives,
pronouns and such, and they don't have to be an "e-" prefix.

The distinction itself, with different affixes, could become gender,
though.

--
Robert