Re: Test and more.

Fabian wrote:
> No reason your language can't make such a distinction. Arabic does, except
> in the first person, where i feel it is largely irrelevant anyway.
It's largely irrelevant in second person too, I think.  After all, the
listener knows what gender (s)he is!  :-)

Discussions of gender-encoding in different languages reminds me of the
"It's Pat" skits on Saturday Night Live.  Pat was a rather androgynous
individual, never revealed whether Pat was male or female.  So, people
were always trying to figure out the gender and trying to avoid it, like
"Pat told me that Pat's brother ...", but in a language like Spanish,
with gender agreement, Pat would reveal his/her gender pretty quickly by
saying "Soy [adjective]", and in a language like Arabic with gendered
2nd persons, it would make it pretty hard to avoid the issue.

--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
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