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This leads to sentences such as (5a) in English, and (6a) in French. 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.
Second-language learners are often encouraged to memorize a modifier, usually a definite article, in conjunction with each noun—for example, a learner of French may learn the word for "chair" as la chaise (meaning "the chair"); this carries the information that the noun is chaise, and that it is feminine (because la is the feminine singular ...
Many Australian languages have a system of gender superclassing in which membership in one gender can mean membership in another. [15] 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.
Katherine (/ k æ θ ə r ɪ n /), also spelled Catherine and other variations, is a feminine given name.The name and its variants are popular in countries where large Christian populations exist, because of its associations with one of the earliest Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria.
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]
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 origin of the English word cat, Old English catt, is thought to be the Late Latin word cattus, which was first used at the beginning of the 6th century. [4] The Late Latin word may be derived from an unidentified African language. [5] The Nubian word kaddîska 'wildcat' and Nobiin kadīs are possible sources or cognates. [6]
However, a meaning similar to that conveyed by the vocative case in other languages is indicated by the use of the particle yā (Arabic: يا) placed before a noun inflected in the nominative case (or accusative if the noun is in construct form). In English translations, it is often translated literally as O instead of being omitted.