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--- funkymonkey1148 skrzypszy:
> Hello all! Long time lurker here, but first post.
Welcome!
> I'm working on a conlang that applies English-like sound changes to
> Vulgar Latin (changes from about the pre-West Germanic era up to
> the British-American split). It's not exact, but so far I
> generally like the results.
>
> In this conlang, tentatively called "Einglek," the many sound
> changes have leveled the verb conjugations (happy with that),
> leveled the cases (don't mind that) and have led me to get rid of
> grammatical gender (at first annoyed me, but is growing on me).
Sounds like a proof that you moving in the right direction! I'd love
to read more about Einglek. Your GMP, text samples and the like!
> The problem is that I'd still like to have gendered 3rd person
> pronouns to distinguish male/female beings. So far, using ILLE or
> IPSE produces too similar pronouns. Perhaps I could use IS, but
> then the feminine accusative singular comes out equal to the
> nominative.
> Any other suggestions?
One thing to consider is that for example French does not make such
distinction. In the nominative we have "il" and "elle", in the
accusative in all cases "le" (correct me if I'm wrong, because I have
to admit that my French is rusty at best).
Look, there are basically two solutions I can think of. First of all,
you might consider playing a bit with stress. Look at Italian
articles: "il" and "la", from Lat. ILLUM and ILLAM. If you want a
separate accusative, you might use something based on the Latin
dative: ILLO and ILLAE respectively.
The second possibility would be something similar to the Romance
demonstrative pronouns, like in Italian ("questo") and French
("cet"), from Latin ECCO ISTUM and ECCE ISTUM. I'd say a
demonstrative turning into a personal pronoun of the third person is
nothing unusual (that's by the way what happens in virtually all
Slavic languages).
Jan
__________
"The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be
born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future
or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."
� G'Kar quoting G'Quon, Babylon 5
http://steen.free.fr/
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