[Lingtyp] Query re pronoun inventories

[Joo Ian]

Dear Spike,

The only society I'm familiar with where the third gender is widely acknowledged is the Thai society, and Thai pronoun are quite binary.
Some pronouns are exclusively used for men (like "phom") and some exclusively for women ("rao" as the 1st pronoun). "Chan" is largely a female 1sg pronoun but I've seen some men use it in certain contexts (such as in pop songs). In sum, there are pronouns that are more masculin and some are more feminine, and I would view the whole schema as largely binary.

>From Taipei,
Ian Joo
http://ianjoo.academia.edu

________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Spike Gildea <spike at uoregon.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2018 11:29:04 PM
To: lingtyp
Subject: [Lingtyp] Query re pronoun inventories

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
_______________________________________________
Lingtyp mailing list
Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20180225/66138119/attachment.htm>