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Does Spanish have a neuter gender | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 9 of 41 11 August 2012 at 11:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm sorta doing the same but I don't feel like the Latin neuter exists anywhere apart from a handful of Italian nouns. It's more present in German than in the Romance languages, lol.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 10 of 41 11 August 2012 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think the disagreement over the existence of a neuter gender is Spanish stems from the fact that the so-called neuter forms with "lo" have a very restricted usage. The masculine and feminine grammatical genders in Spanish are associated with nouns. There are no neuter nouns, period. The "lo" construction is used with the masculine adjectives to create a noun that signifies the abstract quality of the adjective. Sure, it looks like a neutral gender and it could be argued as such, but I prefer to call it a pseudo-neutral vestigial gender. That's a mouthful.
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| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4512 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 11 of 41 14 August 2012 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Sorry guys, but there ARE neutral nouns in Spanish, aside from articles. But it isn't an important thing of Spanish. Actually a number of regions mix the genders in neutral words, but certainly it sounds fairly bad in the rest of them.
NEUTRAL NOUNS I think they're mainly used when you want to depict an abstract concept. For instance, "lo bueno" (the good/right, it depends), "lo malo", etc. Of course, you can say "el bueno" and "la buena", as well as "el malo"/"la mala", but in those cases you're not talking about a concept, but a person, animal or object instead. Mainly, this happens everytime you want to make a noun of a former adjective. The same is valid for other words as "interesante". - Lo interesante_______Abstract concept noun - La interesante_______Person / adjective - El interesante_______Person, object / adjective. If you look up a neuter noun in the DRAE (http://www.rae.es/drae/), which is the dictionary of the Real Academia de la Lengua Española, it'll say that noun is AT THE SAME TIME masculine and feminine. AMBIGUOUS NOUNS Still, there's another issue. Some nouns can be rightfully male AND female at the same time. An example: - El mar / La mar Well, this is more complex, since there are different reasons to this kind of gender mixture. I know these three, but it could be more: First case: Metaphorical usage The last example fit this case. "El mar" is the normal use, but if the word "mar" is part of an expression, that word could be female. And in poetry and methaphors is usual too. Second case: Size question Sometimes the gender indicates a difference of size. To be honest, I remember this case because of my primary school studies, but in the most of the cases people don't see the difference. Examples: - El huerto / La huerta (this is special, because the gender of the noun also changes) - El margen / La margen: This is quite clear. Margen means "border". A margen (m) is used for little things, such a paper. However, margen (f) is used for big things, as a river. Third case: Femenine nouns in singular This one is quite curious. F. nouns in the singular form which first letter is "a" and their strong syllabe is the first one has got a prior masculine article. Examples: - El ave / Las aves - El agua / Las aguas Please, not to mix it with masculine singular nouns which first letter is "a"... Example: - El arce / Los arces ...And with femenine nouns when the strong syllabe isn't the first one. Example: - La acera / Las aceras. Different words or words with different meanings Finally, there are words which are the same as written as said, but they're different "inside the colective mind". Sometimes it can affect the gender. Example: - El pez (the fish) - La pez (the tar) - El/(la) guía (the guider. It depends on the gender of the person) - La guía (the book guide) I hope I have helped you :) Edited by Dagane on 14 August 2012 at 7:12pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Heriotza Groupie Dominican Republic Joined 4681 days ago 48 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 12 of 41 14 August 2012 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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From my point of view, there is no such a thing as a neutral gender in Spanish. If we agree to that, we should assume that in Spanish neutral nouns exist and adjectives can agree to them in that particular gender, and that is clearly not the case. The adjective that agree with "lo" in "Lo bonito" is in the masculine gender, and this sintagma is assumed to be gramatically masculine for natives speakers. "Lo más bonito de esta casa está sentado en su silla".
"Lo" and other pronoun are rather of "generic gender", neither masculine nor feminine. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4512 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 13 of 41 14 August 2012 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Heriotza, although I also think there's no a "strong" neutral gender in Spanish, I absolutely desagree with your example.
In "Lo más bonito de esta casa está sentado en su silla", the word bonito never refers to a concept, but a person. Take this one instead: "Lo interesante del caso es su abstracción" There is no gender in the word "bonito", neither "o" nor "a" in the very word. In addition, both "interesante" and "abstracción" don't reveal any gender. "Interesante" because is neutral, and it cannot take a gender from abstracción because, though it's femenine, it is nothing really, just something abstract. Here there is a neutral gender. because what's interesting? A female thing? A male thing? We don't know. Neutral gender isn't common, but it exists. Edited by Dagane on 14 August 2012 at 7:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Heriotza Groupie Dominican Republic Joined 4681 days ago 48 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 14 of 41 14 August 2012 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, Spanish naturally has some remanents of the neutral gender (adjectives that does not take gender mark, as "interesante", for example). What does not exist in the mind of any native Spanish speaker is the existence of the neutral gender as a morphological reality, in the way feminine and masculine gender are morphological possible. Thus, "lo" will agree with adjective in the masculine gender.
Clearly, "bonito" is in the masculine gender. The gender that "lo" suggest should be used. "O" is the morphological masculine gender mark in Spanish and "A" is the same for the feminine one. But there is not morphological mark for the neutral gender in Spanish, is there? Edited by Heriotza on 14 August 2012 at 7:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4512 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 15 of 41 15 August 2012 at 11:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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Sorry, in the sentence "There is no gender in the word "bonito", neither..." I was regarding my last sentence, so the word isn't bonito but interesante.
Aside from that, saying that "a" and "o" imply any gender in and of themselves is just absense in many cases, it isn't a rule, although it's common tu identify "a" with female and "o" with male. Yes, generally nobody has in mind the "neutral gender", but it still exists, everytime you think in something abstract. Actually it's the same saying "hay algo" than "hay alguna cosa". Abstract concepts haven't got gender, as the never ending discussion about the sex of the angels. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 16 of 41 15 August 2012 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Being used either in the masculine or in the feminine doesn't make a noun neutral. This also happens in languages which have a neutral, for example German, and the nouns can alternate between any two genders out of three.
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