Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site psivax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxj!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!petsd!peora!pesnta!hplabs!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen
From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.nlang
Subject: Re: the closed class of pronouns
Message-ID: <530@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 14:49:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.530
Posted: Tue Jul  2 14:49:25 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Jul-85 05:03:15 EDT
References: <290@wuphys.UUCP> <678@sphinx.UCHICAGO.UUCP> <300@wuphys.UUCP> <515@psivax.UUCP> <737@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 30
Xref: watmath net.women:6276 net.nlang:3336
Summary: 

In article <737@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) writes:
>
>Wait wait!  Both sides: I have a lot of trouble with "The system was set up"
>(let alone adding "so that"), if you mean it at all like an ordinary passive,
>i.e., "[unspecified agent] set up the system (so that...)".  It grew, it
>evolved, nobody set it up.  Of course, assumptions and attitudes in the
>speech community have a major bearing on how a language changes.

	Actually, this is more or less what I was trying to say,
even if I did not say it very clearly. I felt the original posting
did sound like a "conspiracy" theory, and I was trying to point out
that the pattern seen today is largely a result of undirected
developemnent in the English language.
>
>SF does have a good point here, but I wonder if he's taking it too far.
>It doesn't amount to an argument for maintaining the status quo, e.g.
>on the ground that it originated from an innocent grammatical quirk.
>Regardless of origins, today English almost entirely lacks grammatical
>gender for nouns, which is to say that the gender for an anaphoric pronoun
>will be determined by natural gender. 
>
	Actually, I was not trying to argue for maintain the status-quo,
I was only trying to eliminate what I considered to be a bogus argument,
based on a misconception about haw language developes.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

{trwrb|allegra|cbosgd|hplabs|ihnp4|aero!uscvax!akgua}!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen
or {ttdica|quad1|bellcore|scgvaxd}!psivax!friesen