Gender neutral language in German: Difference between revisions

Unlike possessive adjectives ('dein Eis', 'ihr Bleistift', 'unser Löffel'), possessive pronouns ('deins', 'ihrer', 'unserer') stand for the entire possessed object, so they are not followed by a noun or declined. Article pronouns can both function as articles and pronouns without undergoing any formal changes (ex.: Diesen (Pulli) mag ich nicht.).<ref>Ertl, Martin (2022): ''Kasusauffälligkeiten in Lerntexten''. Bielefeld: wbv Publikation, p. 53.</ref> For that reason, demonstratives that also function as pragmatically marked personal pronouns (see table 'Personal pronouns: dominant usage'), are considered article pronouns too, as they can refer to an entire syntagma on their own, or accompany/precede a noun (ex.: Den (Julian) mag ich nicht). In the De-e-system, however, the declension of the demonstrative personal pronoun is different from the other article pronouns.<ref>Verein für Geschlechtsneutrales Deutsch e. V (2023): ''Demonstrativ-/Relativpronomen''. Online at: https://geschlechtsneutral.net/deklinationstabellen/ (retrieved 28.03.2024).</ref>