Grammatical Gender: an Overview

Tuesday, June 14th, 2022.

Gramática en Español

 

What is grammatical gender?

According to the Real Academia Espanola, Grammatical gender is a property of nouns and some pronouns which are classified in masculine, feminine or neuter (“género | Diccionario panhispánico de dudas”, 2020). Spanish doesn’t have neuter in grammatical gender when referring to a living being we use biological gender, in this case being called the sex, as is the organic condition of living things, and classifies them as masculine or feminine. Grammatical gender is just used for nouns and some pronouns and doesn’t always have a direct relation to the biological gender. Words have gender, but not sex.

Who determines grammatical gender?

To determine grammatical gender, we must determine how grammar is thought of. There’s descriptive grammar, which is when grammar is determined through common, everyday use, and prescriptive grammar, which is when grammar is determined through prewritten rules and how language should be used.

In Spanish, unlike English, there exists the Real Academia Española, which is an institution made up of professionals dedicated to the stability of the Spanish language as well as documenting it’s changes (La institución, 2019). They’re considered the official institution on the Spanish language with a prescriptive perspective on language, though, the RAE also takes a descriptive approach as language develops. For example, with the rise of Covid-19, the RAE had to decide whether Covid was masculine or feminine. They concluded that Covid was typically masculine (El Covid) because other viral sicknesses were masculine (El zika, El ébola), but the feminine (La Covid) is also acceptable, as its English origin is Corona Virus Disease, and Disease (the nucleus of the acronym COVID) in Spanish is the feminine La Enfermedad (¿Es «el COVID-19» o «la COVID-19»?, 2022). This takes a both prescriptive and descriptive perspective on grammar, as the RAE takes into consideration both the real life and the more etymological roots of the word. Spanish tends to be like this, with the speakers providing a base which language is formed and the RAE deciding the way Spanish should be spoken (and in this case, grammatical gender of certain words), and both of these perspectives coming together for a rich language.

How is grammatical gender used in Spanish?

Grammatical gender is used in a variety of ways in Spanish depending on the type of noun.

Nouns that correspond with the biological gender of the animate object use endings or suffixes distinct to the gender added to the root word (“género | Diccionario panhispánico de dudas”, 2020). These are words like Gato/Gata, meaning cat. Gato is the root word, with the ending a being added as the feminine form of cat. With similar endings, there exist Perro/Perra, Maestro/Maestra. Changing the ending of the root word (that being most typically the male version of the word) helps distinguish between the masculine and feminine versions of the word. The feminine versions of some words in reference to animals are often used as insults, with Perra being the same as its English translation, bitch, and gata and zorra also being used in a derogatory manner towards women.

A noun that is unique based on the referred gender is a Heteronym (“género | Diccionario panhispánico de dudas”, 2020). These are words like Hembra meaning a female living being other than a human, and Macho, meaning male living being other than a human. There’s also Caballo/Yegua, which are masculine and feminine words for horse. These words have their own unique roots, with Hembra having it’s etymological roots in Old Spanish with Fembra and Latin with Femina (which is also the root for the English Feminine) and Macho has it’s roots in the Latin Masculus, the root for the English Masculine (Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2012). Though Macho itself has a feminine singular form, Macha, which changes the ending vowel to mean “Masculine Female.”

There also exist common gendered nouns in terms of gender, which are nouns that do not change forms depending on the gender but do change the determinant based on the natural sex of the subject (“género | Diccionario panhispánico de dudas”, 2020). In Spanish, these are words often relating to occupations, such as El/La pianista, ese/esa psiquiatra, or El/La artista. Before, to refer to an engineer, the form El/La Ingeniero was correct, using only the masculine form for feminine, but in the modern age, using El Ingeniero/La Ingeniera is also accepted, as with many professions that now change the ending to reflect the gender of the worker (ingeniera, ingeniero, 2020).

Epicene nouns is when nouns correspond to only one grammatical gender, whether that is masculine, feminine, or neuter (“género | Diccionario panhispánico de dudas”, 2020). The grammatical gender in this case is independent from the sex of the referred subject. These are words like Personaje, Tiburon, Estuche, which are all masculine words (using the determinant El ) and words like Persona, Victima, and Hormiga that are feminine (using the determinant La ).

Ambiguous gendered nouns are nouns that use either/ or gender determinants for a given words. These have various determinant forms that are acceptable. Ambiguous gendered nouns are different than common gendered nouns because instead of using El/La to determine the natural gender (or sex) of the subject, El/La are used interchangeably, as common gendered nouns are often an object rather than a person or profession. An example of this is El/La mar, El/La vodka, or El/La calor. These different determinants can have different connotations, such as El mar being the unmarked form and La mar having a more poetic, nautical connotation (¿Es «el mar» o «la mar»?, 2022).

Spanish vs. Other Languages

Unlike Spanish, English does not have gendered determinants (El/La become the), likely due to English’s Germanic and Old Norse roots (Dictionary.com, 2012). Though traces of grammatical gender are still seen in Heteronyms, such as Man/Woman, Rooster/Hen, and Son/Daughter. English also has a few nouns that correspond with the biological gender, such as Actor/Actress. Though, actress was influenced by the French Actrise, and added -ess as a feminine suffix (etymonline.com, 2001). 

Spanish also does not have a Neuter gender, like English or German. Spanish uses the masculine when referring to an object of indeterminate gender or one or more person, whereas English has the singular They pronoun and German has the Neuter Definite Article Das (Bennett, 2021). Spanish has a few created options for a neutral pronoun, but no one conclusion has been reached. A common pronoun used Elle/Elles, though it’s not widely accepted, both for linguistic and cultural reasons (Venkatraman, 2020). curiously writing an asterix in place of an -a or an -o suffix when the noun applies to masculine and feminine genders, like los niñ@s. One other solution, partly inspired by the English phenomenon, is adding an X in certain vowels to remove any indication of gender, seen in Latinx (Lə TI: neks), replacing Latino/Latina (Venkatraman, 2020). This has a troubled history, though, and some people prefer Latine (Lə TI: n), as it uses Spanish language structures, which flow much easier to the Latin American Spanish speakers who use this term, rather than the English-derived Latinx. Another inclusive alternative used is adding an -e suffix to nouns with an -a or an -o suffix to make it include people who are nonbinary, who may not align with either masculine or feminine gendered words, or when speaking to a large group, referring to them as Amiges instead of Amigos/Amigas. The subject of neutral gender in Spanish is the source of much debate across Spanish speaking countries.

Other languages can have grammatical gender unrelated to the natural sex of the object, whereas Spanish will not contradict the neutral sex. German has 3 grammatical genders, Masculine (Der), Feminine (Die), and Neuter (Das) (Bennett, 2021). The word for young lady in german is Das Maidhen, making use of the neuter articles Das. Irish only has masculine and feminine grammatical genders, but the word Cailin meaning Girl is masculine, and the word Stail meaning Stallion (or a male horse) is feminine.

How is gender determined?

Most commonly, the grammatical gender is determined through the vowel suffixes, though there are always exceptions (Babbel.com, 2021).

  1. Masculine Words

Most words that end with -o­ are masculine, like El carro or El estado. Though there are exceptions, like La mano that end with an ­-o­ but are feminine, and words like ­La foto and ­La disco, as they’re simply shortended versions of La fotografia and La discoteca. 

If we look at the etymology of some masculine words, like La mano and El estado, we can find their Latin roots to be manus and estatus respectively (Real Academia Española, n.d.). Seeing as they both end in the Latin masculine prefix -us­, we can see these words etymological roots in the masculine grammatical gender. Words that end in -ta, -ma and -pa also tend to be masculine, with words like El problema and El planeta which are almost identical their etymological Latin roots and therefore masculine (Lewis & Short, 1879). Though there are some exceptions like La dieta whose etymological roots are feminine, and therefore, do not align with the -ta, -ma and -pa masculine rule.

  1. Feminine Words 

Most words that end in -a­ are feminine, like La cerveza and La guitarra, though there are exceptions. El dia, which ends en -a but actually comes from the Latin dies which is masculine in Latin (The British Sundial Society, 2017). 

There are also words with the ending -ión, which is almost certainly a feminine noun, for example La occasion. There are exceptions, though, like El avión, which comes from first the French avion, which is from the Latin Avis (feminine noun meaning bird) and the masculine French suffix -on (Wiktionary, 2022). Words that end in -z­ and -d are also often feminine, like La paz and La salud, though there are exceptions again with words like El lápiz, which comes from the masculine Latin noun Lapis, meaning Stone.

Words that end in -ie, -nte and -umbre are also usually feminine, with words like La serie, La fuente or La costumbre. Again, there are exceptions that are explained etymologically like El puente, which comes from the Latin word pontem, singular accusative of the masculine noun pōns, meaning path (Lewis & Short, 1890).

Reference

Babbel.com. (2021, March 26). Spanish Grammar: Figuring Out Grammatical Gender. Babbel Magazine. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/spanish-grammatical-gender

Bennett, L. (2021). German Noun Gender: How to Stop Memorizing. German with Laura. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://germanwithlaura.com/noun-gender/#:%7E:text=There%20are%203%20noun%20genders,masculine%2C%20feminine%2C%20and%20neuter

Britannica. (2021, July 26). Romance languages. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Romance-languages

Dictionary.com. (2012, May 17). Do English Nouns Have A Gender? Thesaurus.Com. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/oldenglishgender/#:%7E:text=Both%20Old%20English%20and%20Old,%3A%20he%2C%20she%20and%20it

¿Es «el COVID-19» o «la COVID-19»? (2022, May 12). Real Academia Española. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.rae.es/duda-linguistica/es-el-covid-19-o-la-covid-19#:%7E:text=Ambas%20opciones%20se%20consideran%20v%C3%A1lidas,del%20virus%20que%20las%20causa

¿Es «el mar» o «la mar»? (2022, May 12). Real Academia Española. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.rae.es/duda-linguistica/es-el-mar-o-la-mar#:%7E:text=Lo%20normal%20hoy%20es%20usar,hacerse%20a%20la%20mar%2C%20etc.

etymonline.com. (2001). Definition and etymology of -ess. Etymonline. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.etymonline.com/word/-ess

género | Diccionario panhispánico de dudas. (2020, June 25). «Diccionario panhispánico de dudas». Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.rae.es/dpd/g%C3%A9nero

ingeniera, ingeniero. (2020, June 25). «Diccionario panhispánico de dudas». Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.rae.es/dpd/ingeniera

La institución. (2019). Real Academia Española. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.rae.es/la-institucion

Lewis, C., & Short, C. (1879). problēma, A Latin Dictionary. Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=problema

Lewis, C., & Short, C. (1890). pons, A Latin Dictionary. Charlton T. Lewis, An Elementary Latin Dictionary. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0060%3Aentry%3Dpons

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