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

Costentin Cornomorus wrote:

>>My conlang has only 2 genders: "subjective" and
>>"objective". Everything is
>>"objective" except the persons, the pets and
>>the spirits.
> What exactly do you mean by "subjective" and
> "objective"? I am sure most of us understand
 > those terms to refer to noun cases. That is, the
        [---CUT---]

I'd rather say "misunderstand". These are the names of the genders in my
conlang. Just like others have *masculine/feminine/neuter,* my conlang has
*subjective/objective.* They have nothing to do with cases.

I admit that the names *subjective/objective* are badly chosen but I don't
even have native names for them because the genders don't influence much of
the grammar.

Almost as in English, the genders apply only to some pronouns:

he (m. sg.), she (f. sg.), it (n. sg.)

taj (subj. sg.) [taj] = he/she
tlaz (subj. dual) [tlaz] = the two of them
tali (subj. pl.) [tali] = they

daj (obj. sg.) [daj] = it
draz (obj. dual) [dxaz] = the two of them
dari (obj. pl.) [daxi] = they

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).

> What it looks like is your conlang has animate
> and inanimate genders. So does my Talarian,
> though the gender is grammatical more than
> natural.
It doesn't work this way. Animals which are living beings --so animate-- are
described with an *objective* pronoun. They are considered (with a lot of
respect) as objects. And the same way you'll use a *m./f.* pronoun to talk
about the family pet, the Shaqueans (my aliens) will use a *subjective*
pronoun, as if it was a family member.

The Shaqueans which are double-gendered (hermaphrodite) like most of the
animals don't need a male/female discrimination. They're not so arrogant to
think that their body in more than an animal but they also feel that they
possess something the animals don't: their spirit. Hence the discrimination
spirit/body and person/everything else they put in their language. I think
that makes the discrimination *subjective/objective* as natural as *m./f.*

See ya,

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

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