Re: Animate "They" (was: Pronouns...)

> Nik Taylor wrote:
> >
> >Speaking of plurals, is it just me, or does "they" have an animate
> >"feel" to it.  I tend to have a slight preference for "those"
> >rather than "they" when referring to inanimate objects.  Perhaps
> >it's due to the colloquial usage of "they" as an epicene singular?
I have it too, and it can't be because of "they" being used as
singular because I have a similar experience in Dutch; Dutch has no
easy way to say "it", especially if the word that "it" refers to is
not neuter:

I  see the horse. I  see it.  It  sees me.
Ik zie het paard. Ik zie het. Het ziet mij. (neuter)

I  see the dog.  I  see it.   It  sees me.
Ik zie de  hond. Ik zie hem.  Hij ziet mij. (masculine)
                 Ik zie haar. Zij ziet mij. (feminine)

I'm currently translating a book about Excel from German, which of
course has a full set of gender inflexions, and I'm having trouble
calling the mouse pointer anything; logically it should be "hij" (he)
in Dutch, but that feels much too animate for a mere mouse pointer.

And Kristian Jensen wrote:

> Same here. I have also often wondered if the so called grammatical
> genders of Danish, common and neuter, would not be better termed as
> animate and inanimate. Common gender is a fusion of proto-Germanic
> masculine and feminine which both have a very animate 'feel' to
> them.
>
> So like the common gender, 'they' can also be seen as a fusion of
> masculine and feminine, while 'those', being a demonstrative
> pronoun, is much like the neuter gender. All this IMHO. ;-)
I think you're right.

It's a good thing that Valdyan nouns don't have grammatical gender;
pronouns follow the natural gender, masculine and feminine for
explicitly male and female beings, common (animate) for all other
living beings, and neuter (inanimate) for everything else.

   Irina

            Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
                     irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
       http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/index.html (English)
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)