🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3822A1F5.2650AB0@intelligencia.com>,
Kalen  <paradox@intelligencia.com> wrote:
>Mark Rosenfelder wrote:
>> The masculine/feminine/neuter business goes back for centuries-- it's
>> familiar and there is some correspondence with sex.  We could call them
>> vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, but then people would ask why you
>> have to use vanilla adjectives for men and chocolate for women.

>> As for the purpose of gender, consider English vs. French:
>>   --J'ai mis la cle sur le livre.  --Je ne le vois pas.
>>   "I put the key on the book."  "I don't see it."

>> Is it the key or the book that the second person can't see?  In French it's
>> obvious, because of the gender.

>> Or consider the amusing French film _Le grand blond avec une chaussure
>> noire_.  The adjectives tell us the title character's sex; the English title
>> needs to add another noun to give the same information.

>> Gender agreement may also help in parsing, since it offers extra clues
>> on what words go with each other.

>Thank you for the reasonable, non-condescending, and educational
>response. I can now see a use for word genders, though I'm still not
>sure they're worth the hassle.

The problem is that the present languages do not have the
needed capability.  What is needed is the larger flexibility,
together with its limits, of variables.  These should be 
looked upon as a cross between pronouns and nouns, and 
these can have whatever characteristics are appropriate 
at the time; within a single context, a variable cannot
have more than one meaning.

The above sentence would be 

	"I put the key x on the book y."
	"I don't see y."

The variables x and y can be replaced by any other symbols
or combinations of symbols which are not used for something
else at the time.
-- 
This address is for information only.  I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu         Phone: (765)494-6054   FAX: (765)494-0558