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Subject:Re: He/She From:"Kahn, Stacey" <skahn -at- WB -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 10 Aug 1995 12:03:43 U
Beverly Parks (bparks -at- huachuca-emh1 -dot- army -dot- mil) suggests
Male Female Neutral1 Neutral2 Neutral3
he she ze [long e] ze [long e] te [long e]
him her zeh [short e] zin [short i] tey [long a]
his hers zes [short e] zis [short i] tes [short e]
and list mail has been favoring "Neutral 3"-- which I liked a lot until I tried
to mentally pronounce the words in sample sentences.
Something about the hard "T" sound is more difficulat to pronounce than the
slurred-ish (what's the linguistic term?) "h" "sh" "th" [they] "z" and so on--
compare "to him," "to her," "to them," and "to tey."
The "z" forms, OTOH, are more malleable and would continue our "oral tradition"
of recombining word-sounds when pronounciation warrants. (For example, "you"
becomes "chew" after a "t" sound, "he" loses its "h" after an "s", and so on.)
FWIW.
Stacey Kahn Washington, D.C.
SKahn -at- wb -dot- com
speaking for myself and not for my employers
