Free translations of genderless reference forms

Tue Mar 8 14:56:51 UTC 2011

I tried exactly this first option you suggest, Martin, in one book, but the editor (Cambridge, I believe) would not let it in.

Dan

On Mar 8, 2011, at 9:23 AM, Martin Haspelmath wrote:

Another option for contextless examples (in fact, the simplest option) is to use she or he randomly, in an unprincipled way.

Thereby one would lose information, but one loses information anyway in translation. I don't think that gender needs to have special status. Whenever a word has a broader meaning in the object language, one could give alternatives in the metalanguage (e.g. Russian ruka bolit 'the hand/arm hurts', or German auf die Uhr schauen 'look at the clock/watch'), but usually we don't do this.

Martin

On 08/03/2011 14:54, E. Bashir wrote:

The problem seems to exist only in grammatical examples involving humans which are presented without surrounding context.  If the examples are taken from context, whether the pronoun refers to 'he' or 'she' will be clear, and should be maintained in the glosses, in my opinion.  With contextless examples involving humans, one could either (i) have a general note in the introductory materials to the grammar saying that the language in question does not mark gender on pronouns, and that a default pronoun 'he', for example, is being used throughout, but should be understood as generic third-person singular.  (ii) use the s/he and him/her strategy.

eb

--- On Tue, 3/8/11, Paul Hopper <hopper at CMU.EDU><mailto:hopper at CMU.EDU> wrote:

From: Paul Hopper <hopper at CMU.EDU><mailto:hopper at CMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Free translations of genderless reference forms
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 7:07 AM
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><mailto: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

===========================================================

"I have become my own version of an optimist. If I

can't make it through

one door, I'll go through another door - or I'll make

a door. Something

terrific will come no matter how dark the present."

(R. Tagore)

--
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de<mailto:haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>)
Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20110308/4bb637fc/attachment.htm>