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Every Spanish noun has a specific gender, either masculine or feminine, in the context of a sentence. Generally, nouns referring to males or male animals are masculine, while those referring to females are feminine. [1] [2] In terms of importance, the masculine gender is the default or unmarked, while the feminine gender is marked or distinct. [2]
In a clause like las mesas grandes son más bonitas 'large tables are nicer', for instance, all adjectives and determiners associated with the head noun (mesas) must agree with it in gender. Mesas is feminine, so the article must be feminine too; thus, las is used instead of los. The two adjectives, whether next to the noun or after the verb ...
Invariable words in Spanish are often derived from the Latin participles ending in -ans and -ens (-antem and -entem in the accusative case): estudiante. Some words that are normatively epicene can have an informal feminine ending with '-a'. Example: la jefe; jefa. The same happens with la cliente (client); "la clienta".
In Spanish, adjectives agree with what they refer to in terms of both plurality (singular/plural) and grammatical gender (masculine/feminine). For example, taza (cup) is feminine, so "the red cup" is la taza roj a , but vaso (glass) is masculine, so "the red glass" is el vaso roj o .
The Spanish word origen ("origin") is masculine, but its close relatives origem (from Portuguese), orixe (from Asturian) and origem/ orixe from Galician are feminine. The French word équipe ("team") is feminine, while the Spanish word equipo is masculine. The Spanish form contrasts with the Portuguese equipa / equipe, both of which are feminine.
Spanish is a pro-drop language with respect to subject pronouns, and, like many European languages, Spanish makes a T-V distinction in second person pronouns that has no equivalent in modern English. Object pronouns can be both clitic and non-clitic, with non-clitic forms carrying greater emphasis.
Latin; Limburgish; Low German; Luxembourgish; Macedonian; Marathi; Norwegian - the three-gender system is widely used throughout the country, except in the Bergen dialect (some sociolects in Oslo lack it as well), where the dialect allows feminine nouns to be given the corresponding masculine inflections or do not use the feminine gender at all ...
For example, in Spanish, the masculine gender generally precedes the feminine, and the default form of address for a group of students is the masculine plural los estudiantes, regardless of the gender composition of the group. On the other hand, the feminine plural las estudiantes refers to a group consisting only of female students. [2]