Re: Gender in conlangs (was: Re: Umlauts (was Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad))

Costentin Cornomorus wrote:

[---A lot of interesting things...---]

As I said before, these names "subjective" and "objective" are _very_
_badly_ chose.

Let's call them (temporarly) "subjectal" and "objectal". If you re-read my
previous posts making the substitution, I think everything will become
clearer. If it doesn't work, re-try with "gender 1" and "gender 2". These
are just (badly chosen) *names.*

These grammatical genders are meant to separate what is or looks like a
person from what doesn't. During my hard brainshaking, I thought about
"personal gender" vs "impersonal gender" but I stumbled on "personal
personal pronoun" and "personal impersonal pronoun" on my search&replace
path. After a good laugh, I dropped this idea. If you have another idea,
you're welcome. And not "animate" vs "inanimate"! I just doesn't feel... right.

I'm in big trouble because since yesterday (when I read your post), I'm
trying to invent new names and I've found nothing better than neologisms.

> So far, looks like you've got epicene (common)
> and neuter; s., dual and pl. for each. Dual is
> always interesting!
Dual is the first "alien" concept I've fallen in love with...  ;-)

>
>>Just for information, the cases are "sender",
>>"flux", "initiator",
>>"receiver", "circumstantial", "referential" and
>>"emotional". The declension
>>applied to the pronouns hereabove is the
>>"initiator" which corresponds to
>>agent/subject (most of the time).
Ho boy! Don't you want something easier? Some fresh snow from the top of the
Himalaya? I needed pages and pages to approximatively explain the cases
system! Well, I'm going to try but don't expect more than an overview.

Circumstantial is what it looks like. Any circumstantial complement (time
place, manner, etc) uses the circumstantial case and a postposition.

Emotional is a grammatical short-cut to express things like "to think that",
  "to believe that", "to hope that", "to forecast that", and so on.

kajä-hatëltii [kaj9:^x\atElti_i] = my hope (litteraly)

But the emotional case (ä) turns this into "I hope that". And since the
nouns can be marked for tenses:

kajä-te-hatëltii [kajä:^te^x\atElti_i] = my (past) hope = I hoped that...

It helps to get rid of a lot of subordinates.

The initiator case represents what is sounds: the person/thing that begins
the action. It's generally the agent/subject. There can also exist sentences
without an initiator. (I won't tell more in this overview.)

The trio sender/flux/receiver plus a copula (proclitic/enclitic depending on
the meaning) is the core of the shaquean grammar. Every action is described
as a flux between the sender and the receiver. The copula describes the
nature of the flux: object/quality material/immaterial. Stative declarations
are just an equality of the flux and the initiator thanks to the copula.

The referential is an uncircumstantial complement of the flux. Read my post
with the title "Shakelingua" at the end of the thread "How to write down a
language".

For example:

I'm teaching you something about the shaquelingua with this text.

circumstantial: this text + instrumental postposition = tvi-dëttëlsi bea
referential: the shaquelingua = söju-çakesaar
initiator: I = kja
flux: some knowledge = he-ziyilai
receiver: you = rjë (to thou)

And the copula means "immaterial object towards receiver": tul

tvi-dëttëlsi bea, söju-çakesaar, tit'kja he-ziyilai tul'rjë.

[tvi:^dEt?tElsi be_a][sOju:^Cakesa_ax][tit.^kja x\e:^ziHila_i tul.^xjE]

Another example with the sender case:

You're learning from me.

sender: me = kjo (from me)
flux: some knowledge = he-ziyilai
initiator: thou = rja

And the copula means "immaterial object from sender": (l)ul

kjo'ul he-ziyilai tit'rja.
[kjo.^ul x\e:^ziHila_i tit.^xja]

A last stative example:

This grammar is very beautifil.

flux: a lot of beauty = zehe-käpëç
initiator : this grammar = tva-befikif

And the copula means "immaterial quality": vi

zehe-käpëç'vi teot'tva-befikif.
[zex\e^k9pEC.^vi te_ot.^tva:^befikif]

Well, I think that's enough for an overview.

> Like "prejudiced observation" v. "unprejudiced
> observation".
This made me laugh (Sorry!) but I haven't even thought about this meaning!
What was I thinking about?  ;-)

> So they can be either animate/inanimate (or
> subjective/objective, to (probably mis-) use your
> terms)? What makes the difference? When is an
> animal subjective / objective? Why?
When do you decide to use "he" or "she" to talk about an animal? When you
think it's more a person than an animal. The shaqueans do the same. That's
not very grammatical, just idiomatic.

> Hermaphroditity isn't required for not needing
> m/f distinction! Many human languages get along
> without.
"Hermaphroditity" is very funny!  ;-)  (Many puns intended.)

See ya,

=====================
Remi Villatel
maxilys@normandnet.fr
=====================

Replies