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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Pronomial gender distinctions [was: Re: SF & Language - Minimums
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References: <01bc265a$a239f270$275ee8cd@sal9000> <332c8711.3021574@news.mindspring.com> <E7B7BB.ADK@midway.uchicago.edu> <5gs1es$o4k@netsrv2.spss.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 19:55:24 GMT
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In article <5gs1es$o4k@netsrv2.spss.com>,
Mark Rosenfelder <markrose@spss.com> wrote:
>In article <E7B7BB.ADK@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>Daniel von Brighoff <deb5@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>Off hand, I can't think of *any* East Asian language with pronomial gender
>>distinctions.
>
>Wouldn't Japanese count?  (E.g. men use _boku_ or _ore_ for 'I', women
>use _anata_, etc.)

Nope.  Women *can* say "boku" or "ore", they just sound very butch and
vulgar when they do so.  This is much different from, say, French, where
saying "lui" for "elle" is just plain ungrammatical.

Furthermore, some even argue that Japanese doesn't have any true pronouns,
but that's another matter altogether.

(Followups set to sci.lang.)


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
