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When nouns deviate from the rules for gender, there is usually an etymological explanation: problema ("problem") is masculine in Spanish because it was derived from a Greek noun of the neuter gender, whereas foto ("photo") and radio ("broadcast signal") are feminine because they are clippings of fotografía and radiodifusión respectively, both ...
And even with nouns referring to persons, one could not always determine gender by meaning or form: for example, with two words ending in -mæg, there was the female-specific neuter noun wynmæg, meaning "winsome maid" or attractive woman; as well as the gender-neutral noun meaning "paternal kindred" or member of father's side of the family ...
Dual-gender masculine/feminine nouns (e.g., actor, doctor) Dual-gender masculine/neuter nouns (e.g., bull, brother) Dual-gender feminine/neuter nouns (e.g., cow, sister, ship) Triple-gender nouns (e.g., baby, dog) These classes are not equally common. For instance, single-gender neuter nouns account for a large majority of common nouns while ...
Even in written language it doesn't have grammatical gender in the sense of noun class distinctions. Fijian (Austronesian) Hawaiian (Austronesian) [6] (There is a noun class system but it is flexible and determined by how the arguments in a statement interact with each other. Therefore, it doesn't constitute a grammatical gender.
Animals are triple-gender nouns, being able to take masculine, feminine and neuter pronouns. [11] While the vast majority of nouns in English do not carry gender, there remain some gendered nouns (e.g. ewe, sow, rooster) and derivational affixes (e.g. widower, waitress) that denote gender. [12]
The gender of nouns in this class may also mark distinctions related to size and shape, such as the distinction between el cántaro 'pitcher' and la cántara 'large pitcher'. [16] Further, some polysemic nouns can be distinguished by their gender. For example, el margen (masculine) means 'margin' while la margen means 'river bank'. [23]
Likewise, verbs are neuter when used as nouns. Since gender is noun-specific and ultimately a feature of morphophonology rather than semantics (word-meaning), it goes without saying that any "thing" might be referred to as a different name of a different gender: a "mountain" could be denoted by the masculine beorg or feminine dūn, a "star ...
Additionally, there are polyplural noun classes. A polyplural noun class is a plural class for more than one singular class. [4] For example, Proto-Bantu class 10 contains plurals of class 9 nouns and class 11 nouns, while class 6 contains plurals of class 5 nouns and class 15 nouns. Classes 6 and 10 are inherited as polyplural classes by most ...