Understanding Gender and Number in Spanish Grammar
Gender in Spanish
A common misconception is that gender always indicates the sex of a noun. However, gender is often an inherent trait. For example, mesa (table) is always feminine, and libro (book) is always masculine. This assignment is arbitrary and based on historical factors, not the object’s properties.
Therefore, the final vowel of nouns like mesa or libro is not a gender morpheme but part of the stem. Only when a noun refers to a sexed entity does gender provide that information (e.g., niño/niña – boy/girl).
Mechanisms of Gender Distinction
- Inflectional morphemes: -o, -e, 0 for masculine and -a for feminine (e.g., gato/gata – cat, monje/monja – monk/nun). Some feminine nouns use special endings like -esa, -isa, -ina, -triz (e.g., abadesa – abbess, poetisa – poetess).
- Lexical variation: Different nouns for each gender (e.g., padre/madre – father/mother, toro/vaca – bull/cow). These are called heteronymous nouns.
- Agreement with determiners and adjectives: Used when the noun doesn’t have inflectional gender morphemes (e.g., el/la pianista – pianist, el/la mártir – martyr). These are often called common gender nouns. The Royal Spanish Academy now includes feminine forms for some professions (e.g., la abogada – lawyer, la médica – doctor, la jueza – judge).
Special Cases
- Epicene nouns: Mostly animals, these nouns don’t distinguish sex and have a mandatory gender (e.g., el buitre – vulture, la perdiz – partridge).
- Ambiguous nouns: These nouns can be masculine or feminine without changing meaning (e.g., el/la mar – sea, el/la azúcar – sugar).
- Some nouns change meaning with gender, indicating size, shape, or a metonymy (e.g., el cesto/la cesta – basket, el barco/la barca – boat, la manzana/el manzano – apple/apple tree).
- Homonymous nouns: Gender change creates unrelated words (e.g., la vela/el velo – sail/veil).
Extensive Value of Masculine
The masculine gender often has an extensive value, referring to both genders. For example, los españoles can refer to Spanish men or all Spanish people. This can create ambiguity, resolved by context. El hombre es mortal (Man is mortal) refers to all humans. El desarrollo del hombre es más lento (Man’s development is slower) could refer to males or all humans, depending on the comparison.
Number in Spanish
Number indicates whether a noun is singular or plural.
Inflectional Morphemes
- Plural: -s, -es
- Singular: 0
General Rules
- Nouns ending in a consonant (except s) add -es (e.g., león/leones – lion/lions).
- Nouns ending in s:
- Non-stressed final s: No plural morpheme, number determined by agreement (e.g., el lunes/los lunes – Monday/Mondays).
- Stressed final s: Add -s (e.g., el país/los países – country/countries).
- Nouns ending in an unstressed vowel or -e add -s (e.g., mesa/mesas – table/tables).
- Nouns ending in a stressed vowel (except -e) add -s or -es, with variations depending on speaker preference (e.g., jabalí/jabalíes – wild boar, tabú/tabúes – taboo).
Special Cases
- Some nouns are only singular (e.g., caos – chaos) or plural (e.g., gárgaras – gargle).
- Countable nouns: Plural indicates multiple individuals (e.g., libro/libros – book/books).
- Non-countable nouns: Plural indicates types (e.g., vino/vinos – wine/wines).
- Abstract nouns: Plural becomes concrete (e.g., belleza/bellezas – beauty/beauties).
- Some plurals have emphatic value (e.g., cielos – skies, sudares – sweats).
- Some plurals have different meanings (e.g., celo/celos – zeal/jealousy).
- Some nouns have symmetrical structures and use singular or plural interchangeably (e.g., tijera/tijeras – scissors).