From: connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Esperanto's embedded sexism
Date: 17 Aug 92 16:04:06 -0600
Organization: Memphis State University

In article <1992Aug16.080712.42380@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
> In article <1992Aug16.002920.3039@memstvx1.memst.edu>, connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>> In article <1992Aug14.162847.42358@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>>> In article <y8cHPB1w164w@jwt.UUCP>, bbs-hrick@jwt.UUCP (Rick Harrison) writes:
>>> As for affixes, Esperanto 'patrino' no more means 'female father'
>>> than English 'princess' means 'female prince.'  Female fathers and
>>> female princes do not exist.  Notice further that if they did exist,
>>> these words COULD NOT be used to refer to them; we would have to 
>>> find new words or paraphrases.
>> 
>> True but irrelevant.  The point is that _patrino_, like (most? all?)
>> nouns referring to females, is *formed* in exactly the way that a
>> word for 'female father' would be.  
> 
> In the unlikely event of a need for such an expression, a speaker
> would say _ina patro_ or _virina patro_.  Not irrelevant, since it
> illustrates that the meaning of _patrino_ is simply 'mother.'

Of course, an Esperanto speaker would now say one of those expressions
-- but surely because _patrino_, which would otherwise have that meaning,
has instead been assigned the more useful meaning 'mother'.  Note how I
phrased things: an Esperanto *word* (not "phrase") for 'female father'
would have come out _patrino_.

[stuff omitted]
 
>>> If people insist on finding "meaning" in the historical accidents of
>>> word-formation (technically known as the etymological fallacy), then
>>> two things follow: (a) they are not talking about meaning in the 
>>> usual sense (what speakers intend to convey and what hearers possibly
>>> understand); and (b) all human languages will have to be rebuilt from
>>> the ground up.
>> 
>> This point holds only for natural languages.  The new Esperantist is
>> precisely supposed to find meaning in the -in- suffix, just as the
>> learner of English is supposed to find meaning in -ing, -(e)s, etc.
> 
> This remark is self-contradictory; you say the point holds only for
> natural languages (which I was about to pounce on), and then you add
> the a learner of English might do the same thing.

I don't see the contradiction, since English is a natural language.
Anyway: I should have been clearer.  Artificial languages have no
"historical accidents of word-formation", so the "etymological fallacy"
seems excluded a priori.  (b) is patently absurd and meant as such, so
there's no deed to discuss it.  (a) is more serious.  Morphemes -- in-
herited, invented, or accidental [?] -- are all the speaker has to express
his meaning.  Either the hearer interprets *them*, or he engages in
mind-reading.  Of course they do not *contain* "Austinian meaning" or
any other kind, but (especially in invented languages) each morpheme
is calculated to conjure up a certain meaning to the hearer.

> Well, morphology
> helps the language learner sometimes; sometimes it leads the learner
> astray.  But--though you might not see it as a weighty matter--the 
> "meaning" you speak of here cannot be Austinian meaning--what speakers
> intend to convey and what hearers possibly understand.
                                                                       

>> We certainly can conclude that he thought maleness was "basic" and
>> femaleness somehow less basic, or a least less worthy of being taken
>> seriously.
> 
> This is egregious.  This kind of conclusion is what I am trying to
> argue against: that you can get meaning out of word-formation, natural
> language or not.  Zamenhof surely saw himself as a progressive thinker
> in his time and would have been shocked at this accusation.  He was 
> following his models, in which generally maleness was morphologically
> unmarked.  Similary in the case of natural languages, we cannot 
> attribute ideologies to people on the basis of the grammars of their
> languages.  

Not with certainty, of course, but Zamenhof, progressive or not, chose
one kind of language rather than another.  Surely this says something
about his mindset.

> There is much empirical evidence against the notion that grammar
> reflects, as you suggest, social attitudes.  This is the crux of our
> argument, and I ask you to simply look at the facts: a very sexist
> culture can utilize a grammar in which maleness is not "treated as
> basic" and vice versa.

Yes, it is the crux, and we may simply have to agree to disagree.
French says nothing about the French, none of whom now alive invented
it; but Zamenhof did invert Esperanto, and that's the difference.

--Leo Connolly
Newsgroups: sci.lang