by Gez » Fri Jun 26, 2015 5:24 pm
I think they're hardcoded.
Even if they're not, though, it remains complicated, because largely it depends on the language. For example in French, possessive pronouns agree with the gender of the possessed, not the possessor. I.e., in English the feminine form for the third person possessive pronoun is "her", and the masculine form is "his". In French, the feminine form is "sa" and the masculine "son"; but you cannot translate "her" by "sa" or "his" by "son"!
To quote
wikipedia:
In some languages, possessive determiners are subject to agreement with the noun they modify, and possessive pronouns may be subject to agreement with their antecedent, in terms of relevant categories of gender, number and case. For example, French has mon, ma, mes, respectively the masculine singular, feminine singular and plural forms corresponding to the English my, as well as the various possessive pronoun forms le mien, la mienne, les mien(ne)s corresponding to English mine.
Since personal pronouns may also agree in number and gender with their own antecedent or referent, the possessive forms may consequently show agreement with either the "possessor" or the "possessed", or both. In French (and most other Romance languages) the third-person singular possessives do not indicate the gender of the possessor, although they agree with the possessed (son, sa and ses can all mean either "his", "her" or "its"). This contrasts with English and standard Dutch, where the form of the possessives (his, her, its; zijn, haar) indicates the grammatical or natural gender of the possessor, but does not depend on properties of the possessed. However German and several Dutch dialects[2] additionally inflect their possessives, thus giving agreement with both possessor and possessed; German has sein and ihr meaning "his" and "her" respectively, but these inflect to give (for example) feminine forms like seine and ihre, depending on the gender (and number and case) of the thing possessed.
So in a ZDoom context, for something like "%o killed %hself with %p own rocket launcher", in French you'd have "%o s'est tué avec son propre lance-roquette" -- notice how two %-placeholders have been removed, the first by the presence of a
reflexive form for the verb, and the second because the possessive pronoun does not depend upon the possessor's gender and here you know the gender of the rocket launcher. (Remember: gender is a grammatical notion,
not a biological one. Male and female aren't genders, they're sexes. Genders are masculine, feminine, neutral, and whatever other oddity there can be in a language, including sometimes genders that cannot be tied to sex at all, such as "animate" and "inanimate".)
On the other hand, if you want to convey the same emphasis as in a sentence like "%o killed %p own dumb self" then it becomes harder, you'd have to add "elle-même" or "toute seule" (feminine) and "lui-même" or "tout seul" (masculine) and that's already harder. French also has agreements on adjectives, and that's by far the biggest issue with gendered strings in ZDoom. The feminine form is usually the same as the masculine form with the addition of an 'e' at the end, but sometimes this causes the doubling of the previous consonant, but it's not always the case. To get it right, you have to use morphological rules (overkill) or lists (simpler to implement, but also overkill).
I think they're hardcoded.
Even if they're not, though, it remains complicated, because largely it depends on the language. For example in French, possessive pronouns agree with the gender of the possessed, not the possessor. I.e., in English the feminine form for the third person possessive pronoun is "her", and the masculine form is "his". In French, the feminine form is "sa" and the masculine "son"; but you cannot translate "her" by "sa" or "his" by "son"!
To quote [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possessive]wikipedia[/url]:
[quote]In some languages, possessive determiners are subject to agreement with the noun they modify, and possessive pronouns may be subject to agreement with their antecedent, in terms of relevant categories of gender, number and case. For example, French has mon, ma, mes, respectively the masculine singular, feminine singular and plural forms corresponding to the English my, as well as the various possessive pronoun forms le mien, la mienne, les mien(ne)s corresponding to English mine.
Since personal pronouns may also agree in number and gender with their own antecedent or referent, the possessive forms may consequently show agreement with either the "possessor" or the "possessed", or both. In French (and most other Romance languages) the third-person singular possessives do not indicate the gender of the possessor, although they agree with the possessed (son, sa and ses can all mean either "his", "her" or "its"). This contrasts with English and standard Dutch, where the form of the possessives (his, her, its; zijn, haar) indicates the grammatical or natural gender of the possessor, but does not depend on properties of the possessed. However German and several Dutch dialects[2] additionally inflect their possessives, thus giving agreement with both possessor and possessed; German has sein and ihr meaning "his" and "her" respectively, but these inflect to give (for example) feminine forms like seine and ihre, depending on the gender (and number and case) of the thing possessed.[/quote]
So in a ZDoom context, for something like "%o killed %hself with %p own rocket launcher", in French you'd have "%o s'est tué avec son propre lance-roquette" -- notice how two %-placeholders have been removed, the first by the presence of a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_verb]reflexive form[/url] for the verb, and the second because the possessive pronoun does not depend upon the possessor's gender and here you know the gender of the rocket launcher. (Remember: gender is a grammatical notion, [i]not[/i] a biological one. Male and female aren't genders, they're sexes. Genders are masculine, feminine, neutral, and whatever other oddity there can be in a language, including sometimes genders that cannot be tied to sex at all, such as "animate" and "inanimate".)
On the other hand, if you want to convey the same emphasis as in a sentence like "%o killed %p own dumb self" then it becomes harder, you'd have to add "elle-même" or "toute seule" (feminine) and "lui-même" or "tout seul" (masculine) and that's already harder. French also has agreements on adjectives, and that's by far the biggest issue with gendered strings in ZDoom. The feminine form is usually the same as the masculine form with the addition of an 'e' at the end, but sometimes this causes the doubling of the previous consonant, but it's not always the case. To get it right, you have to use morphological rules (overkill) or lists (simpler to implement, but also overkill).