Subject: re : 6 . 959 , disc : he / she

my message 6 . 959 , disc he / she , that was posted this past week , demonstrates that orthographical thorns do not send . i have replaced them with th - . also , middle english or piers plowman scholars who would like more lines from piers and the pronoun paradigms , please e-mail me . also , can someone summarize the patridominance in language theory of catherine callaghan ? + + + + + + + [ former post with thorns replaced ] dear linguist list subscribers , for the continuing discussion of the pronouns , i have some lines of data from the 17 manuscripts of the a - version of piers plowman . they can generally be said to be representative of 15th century usage . is it not strongly suggested in the lines that " proverbial he " , and perhaps the " original " morphology of the so called " generic-he " , was feminine , not masculine ? what a strange thing to say ! can this be accurate ? looking at the middle english pronouns , using the modern paradigm to evaluate them , is misleading and inconclusive . when the development of middle english " his " or " him " is evaluated without taking into consideration their development from old english morphology , much of the story is lost - - that these two " masculine " forms were also neuter , and in this later sense ( " not one or the other " ) , served well for the indefinite singular - - by way of development from the oe masculine / neuter obliques ; and the feminine forms were morphologically related to the plural . in the following lines , the h-stem subject is the feminine ( / plural ) , not the masculine . am i wrong ? ( playing for a moment the devil 's advocate ) do n't these lines below fly in the face of feminist theory as it sees the " he " " stealing cognitive space " , whereas in fact , they are feminine forms ? i would like to have some feminist theory input about these lines of evidence . if so-goes - the-language , so-goes - the-culture ( a la whorf ) , what can we make of the " hers " = " theirs " identity found widespread in middle english morpholgy , and what can we say about the " proverbial he " in the following being feminine ? is there anybody strong in feminist theory , particulary a feminist him - / herself , who can discuss this in the general forum ? is my understanding correct that feminist history sees the h-stem feminine as having dropped from living english by 1300 ? please help . do not hesitate to contact me personally about any aspects of this , pro , con , or indifferent . lines from piers ( * = unavailable character ) passus iii line 229 a ch and he that gripeth gifts , so [ ? ] god helpe , d and ho so gripeth here gifts , so me god helpe , e thai that grypith such gifts , sa me god helpe , h but he that gripeth siche 3eftis , so me god helpe , h2 and he that grypes here gifts , so me god helpe , h3 j and he that gripith mede , so me god helpe , k and thay thatat grepyn her gifts , so me god helpe , l and ho that gripeth heore 3eftes , so me god helpe , m and 3e that grypit here 3iftis , so me god helpe , n and he that gripeth 3e gift , so me god helpe , r and he that grypyt 3oure gifts , so me god helpe , t and he that gripith here gifts , so me god helpe , u and he that gripeth here gold , so me god helpe , v and heo that 3iftus heore gifts , so me god helpe , w he that gripeth here 3eftes , so me god helpe passus iii line 230 a schul ab * e [ abide ] it full bitterly or ellis the bok lyeth ch shal ab * e bitterly or the bok lie * th d shal ab * e it bitterly or the bok lyeth e sall ab * e it full bytter as the buke tellis h he schal abigge it bitterly or ellis the bok li * eth h2 shal ab * e it biterly or the bok lyeth h3 shal ab * e it bitterly or the bok li * eth j schulun abugge wel bitterly or the bok lyeth k schallen abigge hit wel bitterly or the bok lyeth l shal ab * e hit wel bytter or ellis the bok lyeth m scholyn abiggyn wol bytter or the bok liet n shal ab * e hit wel bitterly ar the bok lyeth r shal ab * e ful bitterly or the bok lyes t shal ab * ie it bitterly or the bok li * eth u shal ab * e ful bitere or the bok lyes v thei schullen abugge bitterly or the bok li * eth w shal ab * e it bitterly or the bok ly
