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These are masculine in the singular, but form the irregular plurals uova and braccia, which have the endings of the feminine singular, but have feminine plural agreement. (This is related to the forms of the second declension Latin neuter nouns from which they derive: ovum and bracchium , with nominative plurals ova and bracchia .)
Nouns seem to possess a well defined but covert system of grammatical gender. We may call a noun masculine, feminine or neuter depending on the pronouns which it selects in the singular. Mass or non-count nouns (such as frost, fog, water, love) are called neuter because they select the pronoun it. Count nouns divide into masculine and feminine.
A very small number of nouns in some languages can be either masculine or feminine. [59] [60] When referring to these mixed-gender nouns, a decision has to be made, based on factors such as meaning, dialect or sometimes even personal preference, whether to use a masculine or feminine pronoun. There are no neutral or mixed-gender singular third ...
There are isolated situations where certain nouns may be modified to reflect gender, though not in a systematic fashion. Loan words from other languages, particularly Latin and the Romance languages, often preserve their gender-specific forms in English, e.g. alumnus (masculine singular) and alumna (feminine singular).
Second-person singular or second-person plural he: Third-person masculine singular masculine she: Third-person feminine singular feminine it: Third-person neuter (and inanimate) singular neuter they: Third-person plural or gender-neutral singular: epicene Dialectal me: First-person singular, dialectal Caribbean English and colloquial special ...
The masculine pronouns, he, him, and his are used to refer to male persons. The feminine pronouns she, her, and hers are used to refer to female persons. It and its are normally used to refer to an inanimate object or abstract concept; however, babies and young children may sometimes be referred to as it (e.g. a child needs its mother).
Furthermore, some see evidence of the intentional preference of the masculine over the feminine. It has been argued that 17th-century grammaticians who wanted to assert male dominance worked to suppress the feminine forms of certain professions, leading to the modern-day rule that prefers the masculine over the feminine in the French language. [4]
The Swedish language has a four-gender distinction for definite singular third-person pronouns: masculine singular han 'he' feminine singular hon 'she' common singular den 'it' neuter singular det 'it' The indefinite/impersonal third person is gender-neutral, as is the plural third person: plural third person de 'they' man 'someone'