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It reduces anaphora ambiguity. Compared with gendered pronouns in English (some languages have gender neutral pronouns). Bob and Alice went to the beach, but o
by patrec 6y ago
It reduces anaphora ambiguity. Compared with gendered pronouns in English (some languages have gender neutral pronouns).
Bob and Alice went to the beach, but only he got a nasty sunburn.
Bob and Alice went to the beach, but only "it" got a nasty sunburn.
- julesnp 6y agoWhile it could resolve ambiguities when discussing two objects that happen to have different grammatical genders, it seems it would introduce more anaphoric ambiguities when discussing a person and object with the same gender. For example: "George a laissé tomber le livre et son dos était cassé." Which back was broken here, George's or the books?
- patrec 6y agoNo genuine ambiguity here, it's the book (and I suspect that's typical). Even if you increased the ratio of theoretically ambiguous sentences, if that comes at a decrease of actual, practical ambiguity (uintended and unnoticed by the speaker) that's a win.