[Lingtyp] Query re pronoun inventories

Spike Gildea spike at uoregon.edu
Sun Feb 25 15:29:04 UTC 2018


I have been contacted by an undergraduate student who is claiming that gender binary pronouns (masculine, feminine, maybe a neuter) are driven by cultural perspectives that limit the option — i.e., if your culture only recognizs two genders, that makes your pronouns binary, too. The question I asked is what about those cultures with three or four genders (as written up in National Geographic last year)? Do any of them have multiple genders in their personal pronouns, or are they just binary or even non-gendered? Any information and/or references would be welcome!

Best,
Spike


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