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What word decides the gender?

  Tags: Gender
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
Tyrion101
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3672 days ago

153 posts - 174 votes 
Speaks: French

 
 Message 1 of 4
09 July 2014 at 9:27pm | IP Logged 
Most of the non English languages I know anything about have some form of gender with nouns, and other words, and my question basically is what word in a sentence usually is the word that decides the gender of a sentence?
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iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5021 days ago

2237 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 2 of 4
09 July 2014 at 9:45pm | IP Logged 
In Romance languages, "sentences" don't have gender. Nouns and (some) pronouns do. The nouns (pronouns) determine the adjectives' and some possessives' (Portuguese: seu M; sua F- for example) gender. ex: Aquela lenha é pesada. That firewood is heavy. (F) Aquele homem é pesado. That man is heavy (M). Nouns and adjectives must agree as to gender.

Edited by iguanamon on 09 July 2014 at 11:26pm

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Lugubert
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Sweden
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186 posts - 235 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French
Studies: Mandarin, Hindi

 
 Message 3 of 4
11 July 2014 at 2:36pm | IP Logged 
Like iguanamon wrote, I find gender primarily a property of (pro)nouns. Then, that gender is often reflected in adjective and verb forms.

From English, you're familiar with number agreement. The boy walks, but the boys walk. The noun (boy/boys) governs the verb.
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Henkkles
Triglot
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Finland
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Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 4 of 4
19 July 2014 at 12:32pm | IP Logged 
Tyrion101 wrote:
Most of the non English languages I know anything about have some form of gender with nouns, and other words, and my question basically is what word in a sentence usually is the word that decides the gender of a sentence?

"non English languages" comprises of some 6000-8000 languages, most of which utilize no system of gender whatsoever, so this question is really broad. I could go nitpicking about whether you mean the Indo-European gender system or the Semitic one or perhaps some other but I'm pretty sure you mean the likes of German, French and Spanish, none of which have gendered sentences. The gender system just means that the gender of the head of a noun phrase, for example "a big dog" has to be reflected by its complements, as in "ein großer Hund" or "un perro grande".

Edited by Henkkles on 19 July 2014 at 3:31pm



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