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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]
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] Spanish nouns have two genders: masculine and feminine, represented here by the nouns gato and gata, respectively.
Worrorra: Masculine, feminine, terrestrial, celestial, and collective. [16] Halegannada: Originally had 9 gender pronouns but only 3 exist in present-day Kannada. Zande: Masculine, feminine, animate, and inanimate. Bantu languages have many noun classes. [17]
In Portuguese, diminutives can be formed with a wide range of endings but the most common diminutives are formed with the suffixes -(z)inho, -(z)inha, replacing the masculine and feminine endings -o and -a, respectively. The variants -(z)ito and -(z)ita, direct analogues of Spanish -(c)ito and -(c)ita, are also common in some regions.
For example, el margen (masculine) means 'margin' while la margen means 'river bank'. [23] Similarly, el cura (masculine) means 'priest' while la cura means 'cure'. [24] Like all nouns in Spanish, borrowed nouns must also be masculine or feminine, even when the nouns are borrowed from languages that lack grammatical gender.
Some Spanish-speaking people advocate for the use of the pronouns elle (singular) and elles (plural). [14] Spanish often uses -a and -o for gender agreement in adjectives corresponding with feminine and masculine nouns, respectively; in order to agree with a gender neutral or non-binary noun, it is suggested to use the suffix -e.
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 .
A very small number of nouns in some languages can be either masculine or feminine. [81] [82] 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 ...