Re: What's a gender?

Yes indeed it is--or rather, they all are. I was just quoting one of
the languages as an example. :-)

E.g. ovum : ova > ovo : ova

Though it's not exactly like the scenario Julia mentioned since the
plurals are in the feminine singular rather than the feminine plural.

Eugene

2006/12/29, Mark Reed <markjreed@...>:
> Italian is notable for its number of m sg -> f pl nouns, to be sure,
> but Spanish and other romlangs also exhibit the phenomenon.  I believe
> the nouns in question all (or at least mostly) derive from Latin
> neuters, which resemble masculine nouns in the singular and feminine
> (singular) nouns in the plural.
>
>
> On 12/29/06, Eugene Oh <un.doing@...> wrote:
> > Sounds very much like Italian!
> >
> > Eugene
> >
> > 2006/12/29, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>:
> > > On 12/29/06, Julia Schnecki Simon <helicula@...> wrote:
> > > > Since there are nouns that are neither clearly "masculine" nor clearly
> > > > "feminine", but behave in a predictable way anyway, these nouns form a
> > > > third group that surfaces as "masculine" in the singular and
> > > > "feminine" in the plural. Let's therefore assume that beside the two
> > > > surface genders, the language has three underlying genders, one of
> > > > which surfaces as "masculine under any circumstances", one as
> > > > "feminine under any circumstances", and one as "masculine in the
> > > > singular and feminine in the plural".
> > >
> > > Sounds good to me. And let's call the third underlying gender "neuter" :)
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > --
> > > Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
> > >
> >
>
>
> --
> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
>