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

--- Remi Villatel <maxilys@...> wrote:
> 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.
> I'd rather say "misunderstand".
Then what exactly do you mean? You chose words
that have specific connotations; subject and
object are very basic ideas in linguistics. I see
from below that you are choosing highly
ideosyncratic linguistics terms (commendable, if
you're doing it from the perspective of a native
speaker of your conlang; confusing and possibly
detrimental if you simply do not know the correct
terms!); are these two gender names an example of
this?

> 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
So far, looks like you've got epicene (common)
and neuter; s., dual and pl. for each. Dual is
always interesting!

> 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).
These are what I mean by highly ideosyncratic.
You'll have to describe exactly what each of
these cases do.

> > 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.
I'm sorry, but the terms are hampering my
understanding! Are you using "subjective" and
"objective" in the usual, nonlinguistic sense?
Like "prejudiced observation" v. "unprejudiced
observation".

> 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.
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?

> The Shaqueans which are double-gendered
> (hermaphrodite) like most of the
> animals don't need a male/female
> discrimination.
Hermaphroditity isn't required for not needing
m/f distinction! Many human languages get along
without.

Padraic.


=====
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