Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!daemon From: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Newsgroups: net.women Subject: re: German generic pronouns Message-ID: <5953@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Thu, 1-Mar-84 04:24:15 EST Article-I.D.: decwrl.5953 Posted: Thu Mar 1 04:24:15 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 2-Mar-84 07:42:20 EST Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Western Research Lab, Los Altos, CA Lines: 25 From: akov68::boyajian Prentiss Riddle points out that my statement regarding a generic "she" in German is not true. Well, not *exactly*. What I should have made clear, and apparently didn't is that *sie* is not a third person *singular* generic pronoun but is *the* third person plural pronoun (which, since it does not have gender, is generic). So *sie* means either "she" or "they". I think that despite this minor correction, my argument stills hold water. Making a analogy in English, the situation of *sie* as "she/they" would be as if "he" were used as the third person plural instead of "they". I'm sure that if this were true, there would be just as much of a row put up by the anti-sexist language people as there cur- rently is about the singular generic "he". Second of all, while it's true that *Sie* (formal "you") and *sie* ("she/they") are two different words (capitalization in German makes for differ- ent words), I've been saying the same thing about "he" (masculine) and "he" (generic). At any rate, I thank Prentiss for pointing out the flaw in my statement and thereby offering me the chance to clarify it. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard) UUCP: (decvax!decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian) ARPA: (decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian@Shasta)