Question regarding Grammatical Gender vs. Biological Gender in Russian

[Moss, Kevin M.]

Alina is as always right -- one should not think of the declension as "feminine," but rather as -a declension (second? ;-)) and ∅/o-declension.

I'll wade in, though I am currently away from any actual grammar texts that might support me.
I don't think you will find any common nouns ending in -a that are grammatically masculine, unless they can refer to people.
Proper names are different, especially names of people because then you have a potentially competing biological sex / gender, which trumps morphology.
Apparently some geographical names too work this way, though they are indeclinable and foreign (Брешиа can apparently take masculine adjectives as a city, with город understood)

The same seems to work in reverse, in the sense that you can use professions like писатель to refer to either gender. (какой умница! какая молодец!)
But again only with people, it seems.
And it's only animals that trump the o = Neuter rule too, right?

Safest of all are the i-stem (2nd Feminine / 3rd declension) nouns: always F except for путь.

On Jun 16, 2011, at 4:01 PM, John Langran wrote:

> Oh dear!  The very interesting question was whether there are any inanimate nouns in -a which are masculine.  I certainly can't think of any, and if this is a rule it would be really useful for our students
> John Langran
> www.ruslan.co.uk
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alina Israeli" <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU>
> To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 3:05 PM
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Question regarding Grammatical Gender vs. Biological Gender in Russian
> 
> 
>> One should not think of -a decletion as "feminine". Practically all masculine name have a diminutive in -a, exceptions exist, but they are rare. Even names like Oleg have Olezhka (pronounced [Aleshka],  commonly misidentified, even in some textbooks). Otherwise Коля, Вася,  Петя, Серёжа, Алеша, Валера, Витя, Гриша, Женя, Саша, Боря, Вова,  Дима, Валя etc. How's that "feminine" if 98% of the male population's  name belong here?
>> 
>> The exceptions are names like Стас, Денис (although Дениска in childhood), and maybe a few others.
>> 
>> Even in some rare names we find a way:
>> 
>> Муля, не нервируй меня: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHFTGwgODz0
>> 
>> скрипач еврейский Моня: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR-dOjXwZkM
>> 
>> 
>> Jun 15, 2011, в 6:50 PM, Emily Saunders написал(а):
>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> I thought I'd throw this question out to the SEELANGS wealth of expertise.  Masculine nouns occasionally end in -a or -я in names  like Ваня, Миша, and in words like дедушка, папа, дядя.  And  necessarily these take feminine declensional endings in spite of the  underlying biological masculine gender.  My question is whether  anyone can think of any *inanimate* masculine nouns that end in -a/- я (if there are any)?
>>> 
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>> 
>>> Emily Saunders
>>> 
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>> 
>> Alina Israeli
>> Associate Professor of Russian
>> LFS, American University
>> 4400 Massachusetts Ave.
>> Washington DC 20016
>> (202) 885-2387 fax (202) 885-1076
>> aisrael at american.edu
>> 
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