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Third-declension adjectives that have two endings have one form for the masculine and feminine, and a separate form for the neuter. The ending for the masculine and feminine is -is, and the ending for the neuter is -e. It is not necessary to give the genitive, as it is the same as the nominative masculine singular.
In a very few 3rd declension adjectives such as ācer, ācris, ācre "sharp, keen", the feminine is different from the masculine, but only in the nominative and vocative singular. A few adjectives (especially comparative adjectives) decline as consonant stems, and have ablative singular -e and genitive plural -um .
Latin has three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural). Pronouns, adjectives, participles, and the numbers one to three have to agree in gender and number with the noun they refer to: Masculine : hic est fīlius meus: [25] 'this is my son' Feminine : haec est fīlia mea : 'this is my daughter'
Common gender divisions include masculine and feminine; masculine, feminine, and neuter; or animate and inanimate. The grammatical gender of a noun affects the form of other words related to it. For example, in Spanish, determiners, adjectives, and pronouns change their form depending on the noun to which they refer. [8]
Adjectives vary according to gender, and in most cases only the lemma form (nominative singular masculine form) is listed here. 1st-and-2nd-declension adjectives end in -us (masculine), -a (feminine) and -um (neuter), whereas 3rd-declension adjectives ending in -is (masculine and feminine) change to -e (neuter).
Such nouns arose because of the identity of the Latin neuter singular -um with the masculine singular, and the identity of the Latin neuter plural -a with the feminine singular. A similar class exists in Italian, although it is no longer productive (e.g. il dito "the finger" vs. le dita "the fingers", l'uovo "the egg" vs. le uova "the eggs").
The feminine of first- and second-declension adjectives uses the -ā class of the first declension: -os, -ā/ē, -on; First- and third-declension adjectives, including participles in -nt-, use the -(y)ă class. Here are examples of this class, which is complex because of sound changes involving the y (see Ancient Greek nouns: short a):
This view is supported by the existence of certain classes of Latin and Ancient Greek adjectives which inflect only for two sets of endings: one for masculine and feminine, the other for neuter. Further evidence comes from the Anatolian languages such as Hittite which exhibit only the animate and the neuter genders.