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Vir- prefix

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Ubutumwa 14

ururimi: English

Oŝo-Jabe (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Nzero 2008 03:23:44

When you use "vir-" as a prefix to indicate masculinity, is the word you're creating technically a compound word with "viro", or should it be treated as an entirely different prefix?

gabadubo (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Nzero 2008 10:48:09

Oŝo-Jabe:When you use "vir-" as a prefix to indicate masculinity, is the word you're creating technically a compound word with "viro", or should it be treated as an entirely different prefix?
I don't think you can use "viro" as a prefix. But can you explain more? Because usually a word already is masculine, if you want to refer to a person, or animal.
But please explain, and although I am not a native English speaker, I will try to explain you.

mnlg (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Nzero 2008 11:07:15

Oŝo-Jabe:I don't think you can use "viro" as a prefix
You can. It is common to find "virbovo" to mean an ox.

As for the original question, I'm not sure I understand it correctly. There is no separate "vir-" prefix; when you say "virbovo" you are using the word "viro". The meaning, though, seems to change slightly; whereas you have "male human" ("man") for viro, "vir-" as a prefix seems to transmit only the meaning of "male" to what follows. Apart from this semantic difference, the word is the same.

Perhaps the inherent meaning of "viro" is "male individual", defaulting to humans when used by itself. I never looked into the matter so I cannot give you a definitive reply.

PIV (edition of 1987) says:

1 Homo, apartenanta al la sekso organizita por demeti en inon la semon de ido;

2 Tia homo, rigardata en la matura aĝo kontraste kun la infano.

RIMARKOJ 1 La radiko "vir" estas regule uzata kiel prefikso por signifi la masklon de besats specio; la kastritajn bestojn oni nomas per la prefikso "eksvir", krom se ekzistas aparta nomo por la virbesto (eksstalono, ekstaŭro, ks)

2 En la unuaj tempoj, oni uzis "vir" en tiu senco kiel sufikso, sed tio kaŭzis konfuzojn (ekz. inter "kaproviro" kaj "faŭno", "ĉevalviro" kaj "centaŭro", ktp).


So, "viro" seems to coincide with the English word "man": a grown individual, or a male person.

I hope this answers your question.

Oŝo-Jabe (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Nzero 2008 12:11:48

mnlg:There is no separate "vir-" prefix; when you say "virbovo" you are using the word "viro". The meaning, though, seems to change slightly; whereas you have "male human" ("man") for viro, "vir-" as a prefix seems to transmit only the meaning of "male" to what follows. Apart from this semantic difference, the word is the same.
That answered my original question, but now I'm wondering: if one wanted to make a compound word with the meaning 'man', and not 'male', would one have to use 'viro' in it's entirety to avoid confusion, or would it be relatively clear from context that you were going for the 'man' meaning of 'vir'?

mnlg (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Nzero 2008 12:22:24

Can you provide an example?

Oŝo-Jabe (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Nzero 2008 13:33:52

Well, if you wanted one word to describe Pan as a faun, could you use 'virkapro' to mean 'part-man part-goat' (and not 'male goat'), or would you have to use 'virokapro' to remove ambiguitiy? (or would it be better to go a different route entirely, and describe him as a 'kaprogamba(!) viro' or 'goat-leg man' (and avoid the ambiguity altogether)?)

(!)Please tell me if 'kaprogamba' was properly constructed to mean what I intended.

mnlg (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Nzero 2008 13:41:50

I would use kaproviro, because he is a man first, with a few "goatish" additions. In Esperanto the last part of a compound word is the most significant (compare "tajpmaŝino" with "maŝintajpi").

"kaprogamba viro" would also be understandable.

PIV defines "Faŭno" as "kapropieda kampara duondio".

erinja (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 12 Nzero 2008 19:26:38

gabadubo:Because usually a word already is masculine, if you want to refer to a person, or animal.
This is not really true. Words are usually assumed to be gender-neutral unless specified otherwise (except for the obvious "family words" and "gender words" - viro, patro, frato, onklo, and so on).

Animal words etc are assumed to be gender neutral in the absence of a prefix or suffix to indicate otherwise.

Some Esperanto speakers do claim that many of these words are assumed to be masculine, but if you look carefully at the way that they talk, you will find that their logic breaks down, that their speech does not truly assume that people and animals are default masculine. For example, they might carefully always distinguish between "franco" and "francino" (french person [french man, according to them], or french woman). But you will seldom hear them speak of "gefrancoj" (french people of both genders) or "gebovoj" (both bulls and cows in a group) or "gekatoj", etc., even when it is clearly a mixed group.

eb.eric (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 14 Nzero 2008 02:41:46

I was very pleased to discover what erinja is explaining... Esperanto is (can be) hardly as sexist as it is sometimes made out to be.

In the PMEG the gender of nouns (O-vortoj) is clearly explained:

http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/o-vortoj/seksa_...

guyjohnston (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 15 Nzero 2008 21:26:08

erinja:This is not really true. Words are usually assumed to be gender-neutral unless specified otherwise (except for the obvious "family words" and "gender words" - viro, patro, frato, onklo, and so on).

Animal words etc are assumed to be gender neutral in the absence of a prefix or suffix to indicate otherwise.
From what I've read, it seems to me that Zamenhof meant the regular forms to be masculine, which is why he only created the suffix "-ino" to make the word female and no equivalent for male. Is that not the case? Although that obviously seems sexist now, I expect it didn't really seem so to him in 1887 because that was the norm. From my understanding, if you said something like "doctor" or "farmer" back then in other languages such as English, people would have assumed that person was male.

Also, I've heard of some people using "-iĉo" as an unofficial male equivalent to "-ino" (and meaning all words with neither to be neutral), to try to make the issue of gender easier and less sexist. That seems like a good idea to me. If you use that, will most people understand you or not?

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