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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]
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.
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]
Spanish nouns belong to either the masculine or the feminine grammatical gender. [1] [2] [3] Gender, in this case, refers to a grammatical system and is not necessarily connected with biological sex or gender. [2] For example, la mesa 'table' is feminine despite there being nothing inherently feminine about tables.
NEG se CL puede can. 1SG pisar walk el the césped grass No se puede pisar el césped NEG CL can.1SG walk the grass "You cannot walk on the grass." Zagona also notes that, generally, oblique phrases do not allow for a double clitic, yet some verbs of motion are formed with double clitics: María María se CL fue went.away- 3SG María se fue María CL went.away-3SG "Maria went away ...
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]
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.
Many modern day feminists argue that this is ineffective because it does not address the root of the problem or make the large scale changes to the language that they feel are necessary. [38] A major part of the theory focuses on when words or phrases make one gender, typically women, subjugated or invisible compared to the other.