Nouns: gender and number Gender: masculine and feminine in Italian grammar

All Italian nouns are either masculine or feminine. The best way to remember the gender of a noun is to learn it along with its definite article (i.e. the word meaning ‘the’). In this unit, nouns will therefore be given along with their definite articles, but there will be no discussion of the articles as such. Definite and indefinite articles are the subject of Unit 2. Most nouns in the singular end in -o, -a, or -e. 2 Italian nouns ending in -o are usually masculine: 3 Italian nouns ending in -a are usually feminine: 4 Italian nouns ending in -e can be either masculine or feminine. Unless a noun ending in -e denotes a person whose gender is defined (e.g. ‘husband’, ‘wife’), there are virtually no rules to determine its gender, which must therefore be learned by heart or checked in a dictionary: l’uomo [m] man il fratello [m] brother il pomeriggio [m] afternoon il treno [m] train la donna [f] woman la sorella [f] sister la sera [f] evening la bicicletta [f] bicycle Masculine il padre il ristorante il sale il cognome father restaurant salt surname Feminine la madre la notte la luce la chiave mother night light key To help you to determine the gender of some nouns ending in -e, here is a rule: nouns ending in -sione or -zione are feminine: Sometimes, the gender of a noun ending in -e can be determined by the gender of the person it refers to: masculine when it refers to a male, feminine when it refers to a female: 5 Some nouns ending in -a and referring to persons are masculine when they refer to a male and feminine when they refer to a female:* * There are some exceptions: e.g. la persona (person) and la guida (tourist guide) are always feminine, even when they refer to a male, while the feminine of il poeta (poet) is la poetessa. 6 There are some nouns ending in -a which are masculine and some nouns ending in -o which are feminine: Masculine il padre il ristorante il sale il cognome father restaurant salt surname Feminine la madre la notte la luce la chiave mother night light key la televisione [f] la pensione [f] la produzione [f] la stazione [f] television pension production station il/la cantante [m/f] il/la cliente [m/f] il/la parente [m/f] l’inglese [m/f] (male/female) singer (male/female) customer (male/female) relative Englishman/Englishwoman il/la collega [m/f] l’atleta [m/f] il/la batterista [m/f] il/la pianista [m/f] (male/female) colleague (male/female) athlete (male/female) drummer (male/female) pianist Masculine il cinema il papà il problema cinema dad problem Feminine l’auto la foto la mano car photo hand Some nouns of this type are abbreviations, and have kept the gender of the full word: cinema stands for cinematografo [m], auto for automobile [f], foto for fotografia [f], etc. Such cases apart, there is no rule for determining gender, which has to be learned by heart or checked in a dictionary. 7 Some nouns end in -i. The vast majority are feminine, but there are some exceptions: Two exceptions are l’alibi (alibi) and lo sci (ski), which are masculine. 8 Foreign nouns, unless they refer to a female, are generally masculine: 9 Occasionally, the gender of a foreign noun is the same as it is for the corresponding Italian word: la new wave is feminine, because onda (wave) is feminine. la mail (e-mail message) is feminine, because posta (mail) is feminine. 10 The following rules can help in determining the gender of nouns: • All months of the year and days of the week are masculine, apart from domenica (Sunday), which is feminine. • All names of towns and cities are feminine, apart from Il Cairo [m]. • All names of languages are masculine. • Names of countries are normally feminine when they end in -a and masculine when they end in any other letter: l’analisi [f] l’ipotesi [f] la crisi [f] analysis hypothesis crisis il bar [m] il camion [m] il rock [m] l’hostess [f] bar lorry rock (music) stewardess la Francia [f] la Spagna [f] il Belgio [m] il Paraguay [m] France Spain Belgium Paraguay Unit 1 3