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Gender neutral language in French: Difference between revisions

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Gender neutral language in French (edit)

Revision as of 16:03, 19 March 2026

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→‎Possessives: reorganization because structure didn't work with terminology
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Accordingly, regarding the morphing resp. non-morphing of the definite article with the prepositions 'de' and 'à', we'd have 'à lae' and 'de lae'.
Accordingly, regarding the morphing resp. non-morphing of the definite article with the prepositions 'de' and 'à', we'd have 'à lae' and 'de lae'.


====Possessives ====
====Demonstrative adjective====
{| class="wikitable"
!Masculine
!Feminine
!Analytic gender-neutral
!Synthetic gender-neutral
!Plural
|-
|ce/cet
|cette
|
|cèd
|ces
|}
La vie en Queer proposes 'cet', which sounds the same as the feminine 'cette'; Divergenres retains 'cèx', but notes that it sounds like the word 'sexe'. A third possibility would be to voice resp. to devoice the final consonant of the feminine word, for instance turning [t] to [d], or [g] to [k]. This would allow the word to remain easily recognizable while being distinct from both the masculine and  the feminine forms. This approach would be advantageous in regards to minimizing misunderstandings and memorization effort.
 
==== <big>Possessives</big> ====
 
===== Possessives adjectives =====
{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable"
!
!
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The pronunciation [sɑ̃] of 'san' is a homophone of 'sang' ('blood'). Alpheratz proposes 'mu(n)', 'tu(n)', 'su(n)'<ref name=":13" /> as synthetic forms. However, 'tu(n)' is a homophone of the subject pronoun 'tu', and <nowiki><u> — i. e. [y] — is a linguistically marked phone</nowiki>.<ref>Rice, K. (2007): Markedness in phonology. In: ''The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology'', 79–98. 10.1017/cbo9780511486371.005.</ref><ref>Carvalho, J. (2023): From binary features to elements: Implications for markedness theory and phonological acquisition. In: ''Radical: A Journal of Phonology'' ''3'', 346–384.</ref> Alternative forms could be 'mi(ne)', 'ti(ne)', 'sine', as only the roundness parameter (cf. [y] and [i] in the IPA) distinguishes them from the original neologisms suggested by Alpheratz. 'si(ne)' could be pronounced with an '-ne' ending to avoid homophony with 'si' (i. e. 'if'). Similar-sounding possessives can be found in Spanish ('mi'), in English ('my'), in Swedish ('min', 'din', 'sin', the last one being a gender-neutral reflexive possessive pronoun),<ref>Duolingo Wiki: ''Swedish Skills. Possessives''. Online at:https://duolingo.fandom.com/wiki/Swedish_Skill:Possessives (18.12.2023).</ref> in Norwegian,<ref>Norwegian University of Science and Technology (no data): ''8 Grammar. Possessives''. Online at: https://www.ntnu.edu/now/8/grammar (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref>  in Swiss-German,<ref>Klaudia, K. (2017): ''Schweizerdeutsch. Schlüssel zu den Übungen.'' Online at: https://silo.tips/download/schweizerdeutsch-schlssel-zu-den-bungen (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref>  and in other Germanic languages. As 60% of of humans are multilingual,<ref>McGibney, S. (2023): ''What Percentage of the World’s Population is Bilingual? Introduction to Bilingualism: Exploring the Global Language Diversity''. Online at: https://www.newsdle.com/blog/world-population-bilingual-percentage (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref> cross-linguistic influence could be used to facilitate the memorization and adoption of neologisms.<ref>Van Dijk, C./Van Wonderen, E./Koutamanis, E./Kootstra, G.J./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: a meta-analysis. In: ''J. Child Lang.'' ''49'', 897–929. 10.1017/S0305000921000337.</ref><ref>Van Dijk, C./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence during online sentence processing in bilingual children. In: ''Bilingualism'' ''25'', 691–704. 10.1017/S1366728922000050.</ref>
The pronunciation [sɑ̃] of 'san' is a homophone of 'sang' ('blood'). Alpheratz proposes 'mu(n)', 'tu(n)', 'su(n)'<ref name=":13" /> as synthetic forms. However, 'tu(n)' is a homophone of the subject pronoun 'tu', and <nowiki><u> — i. e. [y] — is a linguistically marked phone</nowiki>.<ref>Rice, K. (2007): Markedness in phonology. In: ''The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology'', 79–98. 10.1017/cbo9780511486371.005.</ref><ref>Carvalho, J. (2023): From binary features to elements: Implications for markedness theory and phonological acquisition. In: ''Radical: A Journal of Phonology'' ''3'', 346–384.</ref> Alternative forms could be 'mi(ne)', 'ti(ne)', 'sine', as only the roundness parameter (cf. [y] and [i] in the IPA) distinguishes them from the original neologisms suggested by Alpheratz. 'si(ne)' could be pronounced with an '-ne' ending to avoid homophony with 'si' (i. e. 'if'). Similar-sounding possessives can be found in Spanish ('mi'), in English ('my'), in Swedish ('min', 'din', 'sin', the last one being a gender-neutral reflexive possessive pronoun),<ref>Duolingo Wiki: ''Swedish Skills. Possessives''. Online at:https://duolingo.fandom.com/wiki/Swedish_Skill:Possessives (18.12.2023).</ref> in Norwegian,<ref>Norwegian University of Science and Technology (no data): ''8 Grammar. Possessives''. Online at: https://www.ntnu.edu/now/8/grammar (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref>  in Swiss-German,<ref>Klaudia, K. (2017): ''Schweizerdeutsch. Schlüssel zu den Übungen.'' Online at: https://silo.tips/download/schweizerdeutsch-schlssel-zu-den-bungen (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref>  and in other Germanic languages. As 60% of of humans are multilingual,<ref>McGibney, S. (2023): ''What Percentage of the World’s Population is Bilingual? Introduction to Bilingualism: Exploring the Global Language Diversity''. Online at: https://www.newsdle.com/blog/world-population-bilingual-percentage (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref> cross-linguistic influence could be used to facilitate the memorization and adoption of neologisms.<ref>Van Dijk, C./Van Wonderen, E./Koutamanis, E./Kootstra, G.J./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: a meta-analysis. In: ''J. Child Lang.'' ''49'', 897–929. 10.1017/S0305000921000337.</ref><ref>Van Dijk, C./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence during online sentence processing in bilingual children. In: ''Bilingualism'' ''25'', 691–704. 10.1017/S1366728922000050.</ref>
===== Possessive pronouns =====
{| class="wikitable"
!
!Masculine
!Feminine
!Analytic gender-neutral
!Synthetic gender-neutral
|-
!Singular
|le mien <small>[lə mj<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
|la mienne <small>[la mjɛ<u>n</u>]</small>
|lae mienn <small>[lae mj<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
|lo ''miem''
|-
!Plural
|les miens <small>[le mj<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
|les miennes <small>[le mjɛ<u>n</u>]</small>
|les mienns <small>[le mj<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
|les ''miems''
|}
Currently, there is no established combination of definite article and possessive pronoun. In this table, the definite article "lae" is simply paired with the possessive pronoun "mienn" for morphological reasons, as both words are of the analytic gender-neutral type. This also applies to the definite article "lo" and the possessive pronoun "miem", both of which are of the synthetic type.


Nota bene: Germanic languages encode the gender of the possessor in their third person singular — Romance languages do not. Only the gender of the possessed object is marked through flexion.
Nota bene: Germanic languages encode the gender of the possessor in their third person singular — Romance languages do not. Only the gender of the possessed object is marked through flexion.
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|la maison (feminine)
|la maison (feminine)
|}
|}
====Demonstrative adjective====
{| class="wikitable"
!Masculine
!Feminine
!Analytic gender-neutral
!Synthetic gender-neutral
!Plural
|-
|ce/cet
|cette
|
|cèd
|ces
|}
La vie en Queer proposes 'cet', which sounds the same as the feminine 'cette'; Divergenres retains 'cèx', but notes that it sounds like the word 'sexe'. A third possibility would be to voice resp. to devoice the final consonant of the feminine word, for instance turning [t] to [d], or [g] to [k]. This would allow the word to remain easily recognizable while being distinct from both the masculine and  the feminine forms. This approach would be advantageous in regards to minimizing misunderstandings and memorization effort.


===Non personal pronouns===
===Non personal pronouns===
====Possessive pronouns====
{| class="wikitable"
!
!Masculine
!Feminine
!Analytic gender-neutral
!Synthetic gender-neutral
|-
!Singular
|le mien <small>[lə mj<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
|la mienne <small>[la mjɛ<u>n</u>]</small>
|lae mienn <small>[lae mj<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
|lo ''miem''
|-
!Plural
|les miens <small>[le mj<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
|les miennes <small>[le mjɛ<u>n</u>]</small>
|les mienns <small>[le mj<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
|les ''miems''
|}
Currently, there is no established combination of definite article and possessive pronoun. In this table, the definite article "lae" is simply paired with the possessive pronoun "mienn" for morphological reasons, as both words are of the analytic gender-neutral type. This also applies to the definite article "lo" and the possessive pronoun "miem", both of which are of the synthetic type.


====Demonstrative pronouns====
====Demonstrative pronouns====
Kmaass
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