#42658
10/06/2001 2:00 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
The woman(1) and its(1) dog(2)* went shopping, and it(1) bought a pair of new knickers.
Now, isn't that much more neat and tidy and totally understandable? Why can't all English be as clear and easy to follow, hmmm?
But CapK, your reconstuction only works because of the specific facts of that particular sentence. It wouldn't work, for example, with:
The woman(1) and its husband went shopping, and it bought a pair of new pants.
Whose pants would they be: a pair of "his" pants, or "hers" pants? Whichever you say, how would you alter the sentence if you intended to say the opposite? Yes, it can be done, but only with awkwardness.
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#42659
10/07/2001 4:17 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
But using my method you wouldn't write it that way. Any formal language must make its references absolutely clear. Therefore you would write (or say): The woman(1) and its husband(2) went shopping, and it(1) bought a pair of new pants.There you are - clear as a bell! Where's your problem? 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#42660
10/07/2001 12:22 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
But consider some further implications:
If the woman is the purchaser you must say,
The woman and its husband went shopping, and it bought a pair of new pants.
While if the man is the purchaser, you must say,
The man and its wife went shopping, and it bought a pair of new pants.
This creates at least two problems.
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First, you can't gracefully handle a more complex situation, where the second clause covers both people. Such as
The woman and her husband went shopping, and she bought him a new pair of pants. or
The woman and its husband went shopping, and he bought a shirt while she bought pants.
If you lack gender-specific pronouns, you must resort to clumsy substitution of "the former" and "the latter".
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Second and more important: even in the simpler sentences, your phrasing of the first clause commits you to the meaning of the second, even before the second is uttered. Imagine the difficulty in an ongoing conversation, where each idea leads to another. E.g., two women chatting:
"Marge and John went shopping."
"Where?"
"At the mall. There was a *delicious sale."
"Did they buy anything?"
"Yes, it bought a new pair of pants."
"Who did? I can't remember exactly how you phrased your first sentence before."
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Doesn't gender in pronouns make it far easier to minimize such confusion?
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#42661
10/08/2001 2:59 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
The Indonesian third-person singular pronoun dia is common to both genders. They're quite happy to repeat the noun if there is any ambiguity.
Bingley
Bingley
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#42662
10/08/2001 6:48 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Keiva, I think you're missing my point. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#42663
10/08/2001 2:55 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Could be, boss Cap'n! I can tell you, though, that I often become confused by wife's conversation, with trouble following whom she means when she refers to "he" or "she" when telling me of a story with multiple he's and she's. I shudder to think how hopelessly befuddled I'd be if all the he's and she's were replaced by it's, leaving out even the gender-clue to meaning. But then, I befuddle easily! 
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#42664
10/09/2001 4:20 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
According to David Crystal's Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language some languages have fourth person forms. The example he gives is from Cree where if you are speaking of two male characters, one would be na:pe:w and the other na:pewa . Would that help?
Bingley
Bingley
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#42665
10/09/2001 11:20 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
The woman(1) and its husband went shopping, and it bought a pair of new pants.
We already have an equally confusing type of sentence, with no contrived pronoun-switching:
The woman and her sister went shopping, and she bought a new pair of pants.
Who did? (Probably "the woman".) We can usually manage to work it out when we actually use such a sentence in real life.
Having gender-specific pronouns in English only helps in some cases. Anyway, Turkish has the non-gender specific pronoun thing - only "it" - no "he" or "she". So I've become used to my Turkish friend referring to her mother as "he" and her husband as "she" occasionally - it breaks the flow when she stops to think about the pronoun - and I know her well enough to interpolate the errors. I am inclined to see her side of the argument...the "he" and "she" don't necessarily clear things up all the time! Try going to an all-girls' school! All your stories degenerate into "her" and "she", with much extra clarification needed.
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#42666
10/09/2001 2:35 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
If I catch you throwing numbers around like that when you're talking to me in a pub, I'm sending you right back to Zild! The hard way!
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#42667
10/09/2001 8:43 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
If I catch you throwing numbers around like that when you're talking to me in a pub, I'm sending you right back to Zild! The hard way!
Will I be able to get my tongue out of my cheek first, sah?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#42668
10/10/2001 6:08 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>The woman(1) and its husband went shopping, and it bought a pair of new pants. So, given that the heading is "gender and articles", do the articles under discussion have to be ... em ... underwear?
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#42669
10/10/2001 6:28 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
I think it was Winston Churchill who said of Lambeth Palace, "40 bedrooms and only 39 articles to put in them."
Bingley
Bingley
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#42670
10/10/2001 12:18 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
The woman(1) and its husband(2) went shopping, and it(1)...
The Language formerly known as Loglan used this convention; pronouns were marked (by vowel choice) to indicate their respective referents in the order those referents appeared in the sentence.
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#42671
10/10/2001 12:58 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
The Language formerly known as Loglan used this convention; pronouns were marked (by vowel choice) to indicate their respective referents in the order those referents appeared in the sentence.Here, not so much of the "formerly", thanks very much! It's still alive and kicking. See: http://www.loglan.org/ to see just how kicking. I first dealt with artificial constructs within natural languages when I was doing my post-grad dissertation and I was trying to determine syntactic referents programmatically. I came across a reference to Loglan in the university library, and although it really wasn't much help with what I was doing, I found it absolutely fascinating. Loa!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#42672
10/10/2001 1:12 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I was first introduced to Loglan (The name is not a legal word in the language, as I remember it) time back way back before the bad time. I had occasion to revisit it recently and found that there had come a splinter group which called their version Lojban (which is a legal word in *that language) which I always want to call Logjam. http://www.lojban.org/ This website seems to suggest that it is *not a splinter group. Da bi slivi
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#42673
10/11/2001 3:44 AM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
Why would a table be a "she" and a desk a "he", you say? A table is a fixture we associate with graces and pleasures, especially a dining room table. A "desk", on the other hand, is a fixture we associate with work. (For instance, a desktop computer belongs on a desk not a table.) The French understand such things, I think. Hence, it is not the pieces themselves, but the emotions which men have attached to those pieces which explains the choice of gender. If women had had any say in the matter, a table, in particular, a dining room table, would have been a "him" not a "her". I continue you enjoy my dining room table as a "her" but I have learned to remove my dirty dishes at the end of the meal.
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#42674
10/11/2001 3:44 AM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
Why would a table be a "she" and a desk a "he", you say? A table is a fixture we associate with graces and pleasures, especially a dining room table. A "desk", on the other hand, is a fixture we associate with work. (For instance, a desktop computer belongs on a desk not a table.) The French understand such things, I think. Hence, it is not the pieces themselves, but the emotions which men have attached to those pieces which explains the choice of gender. If women had had any say in the matter, a table, in particular, a dining room table, would have been a "him" not a "her". I continue to enjoy my dining room table as a "her" but I have learned to remove my dirty dishes at the end of the meal.
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#42675
10/11/2001 3:48 AM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
Why would a table be a "she" and a desk be a "he", you say? A table is a fixture we associate with graces and pleasures, especially a dining room table. A "desk", on the other hand, is a fixture we associate with work. (For instance, a desktop computer belongs on a desk not a table.) The French understand such things, I think. Hence, it is not the pieces themselves, but the emotions which men have historically attached to those pieces which elucidate the choice of gender. If women had had any say in the matter, a table, in particular, a dining room table, would have been a "him" not a "her", don't you think. I continue to enjoy my dining room table as a "her" but I have learned to remove my dirty dishes at the end of the meal.
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#42676
10/11/2001 3:59 AM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,385 |
Oops! I'm a "stranger" here ... and it shows. Guess I haven't got the hang of posting yet. Sorry for repeating the same message 3 times.
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#42677
10/11/2001 2:58 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
You can delete the duplicate postings. There is a button for "delete this post" at the top of the posting to the right of the title. Only the one who wrote the post can use it.
Actually, I was wrong there -- the button is "edit this post." When you click it you have the choice to edit or delete.
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