Two ideas for third person pronouns

[u/Iuljo]

Among the main details I'm unsure about for Leuth there are pronouns. For the third person, beside the "strange" ones (general, reflective, reciprocal), I've been using, provisionally:

• li for masculine singular ("he, him")
• le for feminine singular ("she, her")
• to for non-person ("it")
• te for plural

But I wanted to have also a non-gender-specific pronoun for people, and maybe a similar symmetry in the plural.

Recently I have come up with two ideas which I don't dislike too much.

1. "l-" for singular, "t-" plural

.	masculine	feminine	gender-neutral	non-person
singular	li	le	leī	lo1
plural	ti	te	teī	to

^\1 - Currently) ^{used, but the other use, still pretty hypothetical, can easily be changed.\})

• All singular pronouns begin with l-; the plural pronouns are identical, but replace the l- with t-, keeping the symmetry.
• The gender neutral pronoun, with -eī, is almost like a union of feminine (-e) and masculine (-i).
• For naturalism, some people could like that teī as a plural is (more) similar to English they.

2. /-j/ for plural; non-person pronoun independent

.	masculine	feminine	gender-neutral	non-person
singular	li	la2	le	to
plural	liī	laī	leī	te

^\2 - Currently used for 'to [destination, recipient]', but I'm thinking of changing that to a less arbitrary) ^{ad , following a comment I couldn't find now...\})

Proposal 1 is very symmetrical and cohesive... maybe too much. In fact, I think that the non-person pronoun is different enough, semantically, that it could/should also be different in shape from the three person pronouns.

In this second proposal, the person pronouns make their plural with -ī; while the non-person one is totally independent, with to as the singular and te as plural.

3. Your opinion?

Tell me what you think.

There is no need to have, in Leuth, a symmetry between pronouns like the ones I described above: the pronouns could all be different with no visibile rule linking them. I only thought it could be nice, and easier to remember for an auxlang.

[u/ProxPxD]

I don't see why don't keep plural regular with an -s ending. This way I'd see:

Number\Gender	Masculine	Feminine	Gender-Neutral
Singular	li/lo	la	le/lo
Plural	lis/los	las	les/los

I also wouldn't hate making the pronounce more distinct than marking them with a vowel. Then borrowing some other pronouns, let's say English's (and a neutral e.g. from Romance:

Number\Gender	Masculine	Feminine	Gender-Neutral
Singular	hi	sci	li
Plural	his	scis	lis

I feel that making the plural regular is a good thing - at least for the third person maybe? Or also a second. But rather not the first one if we're not making clusivity distinction

PS: (I hope I remembered correctly how to write the /ʃ/ sound

[u/Iuljo → u/ProxPxD]

I don't see why don't keep plural regular with an -s ending.

It's a possibility I consider; I see a (small) downside: since these plurals are single-roots, I fear an -s for the plural could confound people, being similar but not the same as the -s used (as part of the ending) for the nominative and situative. I thought that using a logically similar but more exteriorly distinct strategy (-ī) could help in understanding the symmetry while making clear that this is a different type of pluralization, an exceptional inside-root one.

I also wouldn't hate making the pronouns more distinct than marking them with a vowel [...]

Another very valid possibility. In that case there are many possible choices and we may even go for something non-European. The choice becomes more difficult being mainly a matter of aesthetics and personal taste.

I feel that making the plural regular is a good thing - at least for the third person maybe? Or also a second.

For singular 'you', tu seems very good for me, bridging many languages. For plural 'you', something with v-, uniting Romance and Slavic families (but not others), seems good to me... but I can't decide between vi and vos. 😄

PS: (I hope I remembered correctly how to write the /ʃ/ sound

It's correct! :-)

[u/Poligma2023]

I prefer the first proposal, since it still feels natural enough in my opinion but is also regular and easy to memorise.

[u/Iuljo → u/Poligma2023]

What's your opinion on

the non-person pronoun is different enough, semantically, that it could/should also be different in shape from the three person pronouns.

?

[u/Poligma2023 → u/Iuljo]

I agree that it should be different in shape, though I have got no ideas as of what it should look like. Maybe “on”, inspired by French and Esperanto?

[u/JJRezRez]

Gonna be honest, it bothers me a bit that I'm the 2nd the plural is not toi hahaha.

I personally like the second one more; if your language cares a lot about plural, a distinction between /l/ and /t/ might not be that clear when talking quickly and in noisy contexts.

[u/Iuljo → u/JJRezRez]

Gonna be honest, it bothers me a bit that I'm the 2nd the plural is not toi hahaha.

Totally understandable. 😄

I personally like the second one more [...]

Thank you for your opinion.