Free translations of genderless reference forms

[Paul Hopper]

There are several solutions used by writers and various journals,
including the one Mike refers to, but the Tom's particular problem is how
to gloss example sentences without making a point of the gender. 'She/he',
'him/her' seem to be unavoidable in this genre. Choosing examples with
plural pronouns (they/them) obviates the problem, but isn't always
possible. How do German linguists deal with this, when many nouns are also
marked for gender?

Paul Hopper



On Tue, March 8, 2011 03:15, Mike Morgan wrote:
> Well, I have seen a few attempts at finding a solution (meaning of course
>  there is no generally-agreed upon solution)... one being using "he" in
> all examples in even chapters and "she" in odd ones...
>
>
> mwm
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 9:21 PM, Thomas E. Payne <tpayne at uoregon.edu>
> wrote:
>
>
>> Hello. Those of us who write in English often run into the problem that
>>  English forces one to make a gender distinction in reference forms
>> (e.g.,
>> pronouns) where the languages we work with make no such distinction. I'm
>>  wondering whether there is a "standard" way of dealing with this by
>> now. Does anyone know?
>>
>>
>> I'm talking about a huge number of references, e.g., the free
>> translations of example sentences in a reference grammar. It can get
>> very tedious to have to constantly use forms like 'she/he', 'him/her'.
>> The free translations no
>> longer sound "free" at all.
>>
>> Thanks for any thoughts.
>>
>>
>> Tom
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> mwm || U C > || mike || мика  || माईक || マイク ||
> மாஇக (aka Dr Michael W Morgan)
> ===========================================================
> Senior Consultant
> BA Programme in Applied Sign Linguistics
> IGNOU-UCLan New Delhi, India
> ===========================================================
> "I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through
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>


-- 
Paul J. Hopper
Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities
Department of English
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
and
Senior External Fellow
School of Linguistics and Literature
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS)
Albertstr. 19
D-79105 Freiburg i.Br.
Germany