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Rovers - He Or She?
Tman
post Jun 21 2005, 07:41 AM
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I'm still confused about the gender of Spirit and Oppy! What the consent about? If Spirit female (so I think) then make it sense to keep quiet about her age and make she younger biggrin.gif

No kidding! I would like to know which personal pronoun (she, her or he, his etc.) I have to use by Spirit's and Oppy's gender definitely? smile.gif


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dvandorn
post Jun 24 2005, 03:53 PM
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Very nice analysis, JRehling. I really enjoy the breadth of knowledge evinced by the contributors to this board.

I understand the argument that the Romance language use of gender is simply an arbitrary noun-classification system. And I admit that, when one sloppily uses multiple subjects and unclear sentence structures, such a classification system can help ease confusion.

I only have two remaining points.

One -- I was glad to hear you use the term "arbitrary," since that confirms my suspicion that there is, in fact, no rational basis for the assignation of gender identity in Romance languages.

Two -- I am a writer, and I have never had a problem crafting any message in English that avoids the issue of noun/pronoun confusion. You just have to keep your sentences simple -- it's not that difficult. Heck, sometimes you don't even have to keep your sentences simple, you just have to pay attention to your references. Now, if you want to say that an arbitrary set of noun classifications helps keep *poor* writers from descending into noun/pronoun confusion, I guess I would agree. But I would also say that, as a professional writer, I think poor writers should stick to other pursuits and allow us professionals (who know what we're doing) to craft important documents... wink.gif

Finally, I want to thank Richard for his contribution to this discussion. It's good to hear from someone who grew up with French as a first language. It's especially informative to me to hear that the French themselves, while they find the structures and protocols of their language to be far more natural than I might, still find some of the irrationalities amusing and, well -- irrational. I, for one, readily admit the irrationalities of English -- especially the emotional loading of English structures in which some unseen "they" are responsible for just about everything that happens. It was refreshing to hear someone fondly admit to the craziness of his own language...

Overall -- good discussion!

-the other Doug


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JRehling
post Jun 24 2005, 05:30 PM
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QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 24 2005, 08:53 AM)
Very nice analysis, JRehling.  I really enjoy the breadth of knowledge evinced by the contributors to this board.

I only have two remaining points.

One -- I was glad to hear you use the term "arbitrary," since that confirms my suspicion that there is, in fact, no rational basis for the assignation of gender identity in Romance languages.

*


In some languages, and some cases in some languages, noun classes are systematic in some way. Chinese and Japanese, for example, have semantic labels that make some sense. But they aren't used to label articles and adjectives the way IndoEuropean gender are.

There fact that the system is a hodgepodge can be seen in the fact that there is sometimes a semantic component, sometimes a word-ending component, sometimes an exception to a rule. One layer on all of this is that each of the Romance languages was descended from a language (Latin) with 3 genders, and has loan words from a different language (Greek). So, a number of Greek words ending with -ma are masculine in Spanish BECAUSE they were masculine in Greek. Spanish, in effect, had to choose whether to be true to the usual spelling rule (-a being feminine) or the word's history (its gender in Greek).

An arbitrary system is often one where definite rules clashed, and no matter what was chosen, one of the rules had to be violated.

QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 24 2005, 08:53 AM)
Two -- I am a writer, and I have never had a problem crafting any message in English that avoids the issue of noun/pronoun confusion.  You just have to keep your sentences simple -- it's not that difficult.  Heck, sometimes you don't even have to keep your sentences simple, you just have to pay attention to your references.  Now, if you want to say that an arbitrary set of noun classifications helps keep *poor* writers from descending into noun/pronoun confusion, I guess I would agree.  But I would also say that, as a professional writer, I think poor writers should stick to other pursuits and allow us professionals (who know what we're doing) to craft important documents...  wink.gif
*


A very important point here: Most of the evolution of language (the human capacity in general, and each current language specifically) took place with very little input from the written medium. Language is about speaking, with only some modern exceptions these past few thousand years. So, while a writer rarely has to worry about whether or not the reader can clearly make out all of the letters in the words, a speaker must seriously contend with the fact that a listener will not hear every phoneme in every word. In some cases, no information at all will come across. In other cases, a vowel can be swallowed and seem ambiguous. The Romance languages did not evolve to be clearly read -- they evolved to be clearly heard.

What I said about clarity goes for brevity, too. Brevity is often desirable, but the cost of something longer-written is less than the cost of something longer-said. A speech act puts two people into a time-constrained situation, and the speaker may be competing with the listener as to who will speak next; not to mention, whether or not the listener will pay attention! These considerations are very different in the writer-reader relationship.

In a nutshell, while writing is a nice new invention that has lofted our species to new heights, it *is* a new thing, and if you integrate over all people, I think visual transmission of language is still a very distant second behind auditory transmission of language, although for a few niche individuals, the opposite may be true.

QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 24 2005, 08:53 AM)
Finally, I want to thank Richard for his contribution to this discussion. It's good to hear from someone who grew up with French as a first language. It's especially informative to me to hear that the French themselves, while they find the structures and protocols of their language to be far more natural than I might, still find some of the irrationalities amusing and, well -- irrational. I, for one, readily admit the irrationalities of English -- especially the emotional loading of English structures in which some unseen "they" are responsible for just about everything that happens. It was refreshing to hear someone fondly admit to the craziness of his own language...
*


The best quirks are the ones one hasn't noticed yet. I'll give you three I bet you haven't noticed.

"Japanese" can be used as a plural noun. What is the plural possessive?

You can say "I gave Ted a book" or "I gave a book to Ted". But you can't say, "I reported the police a crime", only "I reported a crime to the police." What is the rule that determines which verb you can use both ways?

Some adjectives shift to the comparative with -er (big:bigger, silly:sillier). But many can't do that, and take a preposed "more" (intelligent:more intelligent, golden:more golden). You presumably feel comfortable adjudicating which adjective is handled each way, and make that judgement very rapidly as you speak. Since it's so easy, tell me: What's the rule?
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Posts in this topic
- Tman   Rovers - He Or She?   Jun 21 2005, 07:41 AM
- - Nix   Are they not both gals? Nico   Jun 21 2005, 07:43 AM
|- - dvandorn   Technically, of course, they're asexual, and t...   Jun 21 2005, 07:56 AM
- - djellison   Both girls imho Doug   Jun 21 2005, 08:29 AM
- - wyogold   QUOTE (Tman @ Jun 21 2005, 07:41 AM)No kiddin...   Jun 21 2005, 09:11 AM
|- - RedSky   QUOTE (wyogold @ Jun 21 2005, 04:11 AM)somebo...   Jun 21 2005, 10:05 PM
- - Tman   If I check between, when looking intimately, I wou...   Jun 21 2005, 09:31 AM
- - mike   They're both genderless. Until we create mach...   Jun 21 2005, 05:03 PM
|- - Deimos   QUOTE (mike @ Jun 21 2005, 05:03 PM)They...   Jun 21 2005, 06:11 PM
|- - dvandorn   Exactly -- just try telling the French that someth...   Jun 21 2005, 07:02 PM
|- - Phillip   Well, as a French-American, I must point out that ...   Jun 21 2005, 07:23 PM
||- - mike   Say that the rovers are male or female if you like...   Jun 21 2005, 07:36 PM
||- - dvandorn   Yes, English got the concept of neuter pronouns fr...   Jun 21 2005, 07:55 PM
||- - mike   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 21 2005, 11:55 AM)Oppy,...   Jun 21 2005, 09:16 PM
|- - helvick   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 21 2005, 08:02 PM)And y...   Jun 22 2005, 05:58 AM
|- - Borek   QUOTE (helvick @ Jun 22 2005, 05:58 AM)Just w...   Jun 24 2005, 10:56 AM
- - djellison   Moving a few posts   Jun 21 2005, 10:00 PM
- - hendric   Mike, Oh come on, anything that 1. Stops talk...   Jun 22 2005, 02:42 AM
|- - Richard Trigaux   QUOTE (dvandorn)But in a very real sense, these pl...   Jun 22 2005, 05:57 AM
- - djellison   Yup - Vessels of exploration are always female D...   Jun 22 2005, 07:18 AM
- - edstrick   Would it then be: Ms Opportunity and Ms Spirit? ...   Jun 22 2005, 07:31 AM
|- - Richard Trigaux   QUOTE (edstrick @ Jun 22 2005, 07:31 AM)Would...   Jun 22 2005, 08:33 AM
|- - Richard Trigaux   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 21 2005 @ 08:02 PM)Ame...   Jun 22 2005, 08:48 AM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ Jun 22 2005, 01:48 A...   Jun 22 2005, 05:33 PM
|- - helvick   QUOTE (JRehling @ Jun 22 2005, 06:33 PM)...ge...   Jun 22 2005, 08:54 PM
|- - JRehling   There is a wide variety in terms of how compr...   Jun 22 2005, 09:39 PM
|- - helvick   Nice response. The specific "choice" o...   Jun 22 2005, 10:16 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (helvick @ Jun 22 2005, 03:16 PM)For th...   Jun 22 2005, 10:28 PM
|- - helvick   QUOTE (JRehling @ Jun 22 2005, 11:28 PM)Doug ...   Jun 22 2005, 10:36 PM
- - djellison   Hands up - I actually got complaints about this st...   Jun 22 2005, 09:07 AM
- - edstrick   Trigaux said "..... Some among the greatest s...   Jun 22 2005, 09:24 AM
|- - Richard Trigaux   QUOTE (edstrick @ Jun 22 2005, 09:24 AM)Decad...   Jun 22 2005, 05:19 PM
- - dvandorn   I'm sorry, I guess I haven't stated my poi...   Jun 23 2005, 04:55 AM
|- - Richard Trigaux   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 23 2005, 04:55 AM)As a ...   Jun 23 2005, 07:01 AM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 22 2005, 09:55 PM)I...   Jun 23 2005, 09:20 AM
- - dvandorn   Very nice analysis, JRehling. I really enjoy the ...   Jun 24 2005, 03:53 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 24 2005, 08:53 AM)Very ...   Jun 24 2005, 05:30 PM
|- - dvandorn   QUOTE (JRehling @ Jun 24 2005, 12:30 PM)The b...   Jun 24 2005, 06:46 PM
- - tty   Be glad you don't have to learn Swedish. The u...   Jun 24 2005, 08:31 PM
- - Richard Trigaux   what I think is that languages are historical buil...   Jun 25 2005, 06:49 AM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (Richard Trigaux @ Jun 24 2005, 11:49 P...   Jun 25 2005, 07:30 PM
|- - dvandorn   QUOTE (JRehling @ Jun 25 2005, 02:30 PM)...Of...   Jun 25 2005, 09:02 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jun 25 2005, 02:02 PM)The I...   Jun 25 2005, 10:15 PM
- - Pavel   I don't know about Eskimo, but English has lot...   Jul 4 2005, 11:40 PM


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