From lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Tue Aug 06 23:42:29 1996 Received: from punt4.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA13705 ; Tue, 06 Aug 96 23:42:27 BST Received: from punt-4.mail.demon.net by mailstore for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk id 839347369:14068:4; Tue, 06 Aug 96 17:02:49 BST Received: from cunyvm.cuny.edu ([128.228.1.2]) by punt-4.mail.demon.net id aa13823; 6 Aug 96 17:02 +0100 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 7109; Tue, 06 Aug 96 11:52:18 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 1272; Tue, 06 Aug 96 11:51:47 EDT Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 11:50:18 -0400 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Organization: Lojban Peripheral Subject: Re: male/female, man/woman, human/person X-To: Lojban List To: Multiple recipients of list LOJBAN Message-ID: <839347339.13823.0@cunyvm.cuny.edu> Status: R la marvn. cusku di'e > Okay, the powers that be in the lojban community discourage the use of > nanmu (man) and ninmu (woman), saying that they're sexist. Okay, I > totally understand and support that guideline. I think you are overgeneralizing from the guidelines about examples. Of course it is all right to use nanmu/ninmu where necessary and useful. We just try to avoid examples that refer to "le nanmu" and "le ninmu" all the time, so that people don't feel excluded. Similarly, the reference grammar says "he or she" or avoids the issue. This has nothing to do with what to do when writing in Lojban! Similarly, tanru of the form "nanmu/ninmu broda" are hard to construe. Just what is supposed to be a "male human" or "female human" attribute, beyond the anatomical? It's too culture-specific. > The thing is, I wonder why > they even exist as gismu. Why not just combine fetsi (female) with prenu > (person) to form fetpre (female person)? (Or would it be fetypre?) fetpre is correct. "tp" is a valid consonant cluster, and "fe tpre" is impossible because "tp" is *not* a valid initial cluster. > It > seems that fetpre and ninmu mean the same thing. They both have the same > place structure, and are non-age and -species specific. Meaning is a sticky issue that we avoid defining as much as we can, and so synonymy of predicates is not part of the Lojban definition. In addition, "fetpre" may include a female cat that has a personality (to the speaker), whereas "ninmu" surely excludes such a one. I think the use of "humanoid" in the place structure is plain waffling.... female chimps? female ETIs? -- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org e'osai ko sarji la lojban