03/11/99

Language: A fourth grammatical gender for Higher Intelligent Entities.



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Neuter gender:
It         -- Things; and lower life forms whose sex is not 
              normally distinguished.

Male and female genders:
He, She    -- Beasts and humans whose behaviour and consciousness are 
              controlled in a significant degree by the sex-specific, 
              genetically fixed, traits of the specific sex (= genetic 
              sub-category of the species) they belong to.

4th gender:
Ey         -- Intelligent life forms whose counsciousnesss
              resides mainly on the mental (memetic) level rather than
              being primarily controlled by genetic forces.



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Grammatical forms and pronounciation for 3rd person personal pronouns (which 
is the only type of word which distinguishes gender): 

The specific forms are inspired on Oceania 
(http://unicycle.cs.tulane.edu/oceania/ , 
ftp://unicycle.cs.tulane.edu/pub/oceania): 
   `` The pronouns are [...] formed by removing the initial th from their
      plural pronouns.  [...]  It is recommended that ey be pronounced to 
      rhyme with he/she. '' 


                                  Singular              /   Plural
                                  N    M   F     4      /   all genders

Nominative case                   It   He  She   Ey     /   They 
Accusative and dative cases       It   Him Her   Em     /   Them
Posessive 1 (*His* book)          Its  His Her   Eir    /   Their
Posessive 2 (The book is *his*)   -    His Hers  Eirs   /   Theirs


Corollary: As a consequence, the initial Th- serves as a plural prefix in
4th gender personal pronouns.


Prounounciation of 4th gender personal pronouns in singular always with
*short* sound `ee':

    Ey     - Prounounced as `ea' in `sea'; rhymes with `he' and `she'.
    Em     - Prounounced as `eam' in `steam'.
    Eir    - Prounounced as `ere' in `here'.
    Eirs   - Prounounced as `eers' in `cheers'.



Examples:

`` Broq is here.  Ey is reading a book, which I lent to Em because Eir own 
books were all lost.  The book is not Eirs but mine. '' 

(4th gender prounouns spelled here with initial capital to enhance visual 
clarity.)