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From: stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Pascal MacProgrammer)
Subject: International Language.
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Organization: Grammar 'R' Us 
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 05:07:09 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang.translation:634 sci.lang:34223

Not so very long ago, olivier@glasnost.austin.ibm.com said...

>You are confusing gender and sex. A common enough mistake in PC Amerika.
>I can assure you than I don't think "ma chaise" (my chair) is any more
>female than "mon tabouret" (my stool) is male.

  No, I am not confusing gender and sex.  There are two sexes: male and 
female, and they are qualities of people.  There are three genders in 
English: masculine, feminine, and neuter.

>Let me put it this way. Imagine you have a language with 5 declensions
>A, B, C, D, E. And it just so happens that male names follow declension A,
>and female names follow declension B, ...

  So far, so good.  Your example reminds me of Latin, where feminine 
names are generally of the first (A) declensin, and masculine ones are 
generally of the second (0).  However:

> ...so we may as just call A, masculine,
>and B, feminine. Now what do we do with C, D and E. Well why not call then
>neutral type I, neutral type II, neutral type III. Although a neutral
>person does not exist, it's a quite logical step to name those declensions
>that way when you've named A and B, masculine and feminine.

  Now you're confusing declensions and genders.  Declensions are sets of 
changes in the forms of words to form the different cases and numbers.  
  If words of a particular declension are usually of the same gender, 
then that is a meaningless coincidence.

>Things become more complicated if some male names follow A while others
>follow C, then we'll have masculine type I, masculine type II, feminine,
>neutral type I, neutral type II.

  No complication -- just keep declension and gender separate.

>I won't go on, if haven't made my point now.  I never will.

  I think the point you were trying to make was a mistake.

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