This question has a false premise and thus makes no sense.
Many natural languages are already genderless, so your question is equivalent to: “In genderless and sexless languages, what are pronouns based on?”, implying that there has to be some sort of gender-based polymorphism among pronouns.
implying that there has to be some sort of gender-based polymorphism among pronouns.
Pronouns are a shortcut for a noun. They do not need to be linked to genders. Singular third-person pronouns benefit from some variance based what is talked about. As other comments pointed out, these third-person pronouns could be based on social status, age, physical proximity, familiarity, etc.
This question has a false premise and thus makes no sense.
Many natural languages are already genderless, so your question is equivalent to: “In genderless and sexless languages, what are pronouns based on?”, implying that there has to be some sort of gender-based polymorphism among pronouns.
Pronouns are a shortcut for a noun. They do not need to be linked to genders. Singular third-person pronouns benefit from some variance based what is talked about. As other comments pointed out, these third-person pronouns could be based on social status, age, physical proximity, familiarity, etc.
That’s all there is about my question.
@aldhissla @enemyofsun I would argue even having pronouns might not be strictly necessary.
Of course one could always use names. Having ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘them’ is just more convenient it seems.
Nothing above Turing-completeness (if even that) is strictly necessary. But as OP had pointed out in other comments, pronouns have a practical use.