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There are certain words (derived from Latin second-declension neuter nouns) that are masculine in the singular and feminine or masculine in the plural. Examples include: il braccio / le braccia or i bracci ('the arm(s)') l'uovo / le uova ('the egg(s)') il ginocchio / le ginocchia or i ginocchi ('the knee(s)')
Here a masculine–feminine–neuter system previously existed, but the distinction between masculine and feminine genders has been lost in nouns (they have merged into what is called common gender), though not in pronouns that can operate under natural gender. Thus nouns denoting people are usually of common gender, whereas other nouns may be ...
gato, It. gatto: Late borrowing of obscure origin. ear auris — auricla~oricla: ... Dies 'day' could be either masculine or feminine in Latin. dies dominica: Vgl.
Polish: Masculine personal, Masculine animate, Masculine inanimate, Feminine, Neuter (traditionally, only masculine, feminine and neuter genders are recognized). Pama–Nyungan languages including Dyirbal and other Australian languages have gender systems such as: Masculine, feminine (see Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things), vegetable and neuter ...
There are two basic classes of nouns in Italian, referred to as genders, masculine and feminine. Gender may be natural ( ragazzo 'boy', ragazza 'girl') or simply grammatical with no possible reference to biological gender (masculine costo 'cost', feminine costa 'coast').
-o masculine singular-a feminine singular-i masculine plural-e feminine plural; Reflexive verbs always use essere, and their past participle agrees with the subject or with third person object pronouns, if these precede the verb. mi sono lavato/-a "I washed myself" ci siamo visti/-e "we saw each other" si è lavato le gambe "he washed his legs"
The accusative theory proposes that Italian -e derives from -as. One piece of evidence is that in Italian, masculine amico has plural amici with /tʃ/ (the expected palatal outcome before -Ī), but feminine amica has plural amiche, with /k/ that is unexpected if e < -AE, but expected if e < -ĀS.
Example of gender-neutral masculine: English (5) a. If anybody comes, tell him. masculine him used to refer to a person of unknown sex b. *If anybody comes, tell her. feminine her is not used to refer to a person of unknown sex Example of collective masculine: French (6) a. Vos amis sont arrivés — Ils étaient en avance.