txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....

[Rick Mc Callister]

[ moderator edited ]

>Rick Mc Callister wrote:

>>How common is this phenomenon in other Romance
>>languages and other other languages with grammatical gender?

>Interesting thing with disappearing of Latin neuter nouns happens in
>Romanian. Romanian actually has neuter gender, but in singular forms it's
>equal to masculine, while in plural to feminine. Even the definite article,
>which is postpositive in Romanian, doesn't have its own form, but follows
>the same pattern.

>In one Spanish grammar written in Croatian I found that there are still some
>words in Spanish considered neuter (of course, not "leche") that express
>collectives or some young animals. The article quoted is LO. Is it indeed,
>or is it some interpretation of the author?

	Spanish neuter lo is used with adjectives to express abstract
qualities; e.g.
bueno "good (masc.)"
el bueno "the good (person, thing, place) (masc.)"
lo bueno "that which is good, the good (thing, part, aspect, etc.)"

there are also the neuter demonstratives esto "this one", eso "that one",
aquello "that one (far away in space or time; or last in a series)". These
are used to refer to abstract thoughts or things without antecedents such
as a "one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people-eater"

regarding collectives or baby animals, you just use the normal masculine or
feminine article; e.g. el ternero "the calf", el cachorro "the puppy, cub,
whelp", el gatito "the kitten"; el pinal, el pinar "the pine grove", los
pinos "the pines"

Asturian, on the other hand, does have a neuter that's used for collectives
and, I think, "topic" or "generic" use. Posner talks about it and I have an
Asturian student who's heard it used.

Regarding masculine singular, feminine plural. Off the top of the head, the
example in Spanish is el arte, las artes. Some speakers (and most
dictionaries), however, use el arte (masc.) to mean "art" in a generic
sense and el arte (fem.) to mean "art" in a specific sense. I've only come
across the plural as las artes (fem.).
The form el, normally masculine, is, of course, also used with feminine
nouns beginning with a stressed /a/

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701