# Natural and grammatical gender



## Hulalessar

I have been leafing through an Italian grammar and find that where the grammatical gender does not match natural gender one is required to say (where the person talked about is male) things like:

_La signora guardia è sempre molto scrupolosa.
_
I can recall when being taught French that, whatever the sex of the sentry, you needed to say _Elle est partie_ in answer to _Où est la sentinelle?_, but as far as I know one is not required to refer to a sentry as _Madame la sentinelle_ when referring to a male sentry.

Whilst there is clearly some "logic" in being strictly grammatical, referring to a male as _signora _strikes me as rather odd, but that is no doubt attributable to my first language lacking grammatical gender.

Are there any other languages where one is required in certain cases to refer to males by designations normally assigned to females (and vice versa)?


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## Gavril

I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but in Icelandic (which has masculine, feminine and neuter genders), nouns referring to residents of a country generally have fixed masculine gender: they don't "adapt" to the semantic gender of the person in question.

Thus,

_Hlynur er ung*ur* Íslendingur._ "Hlynur [male] is a young Icelandic person"
_Hlín er ung*ur* Íslendingur._ "Hlín [female] is a young Icelandic person"

The masculine nominative singular ending -_ur _appears on the adjective in both cases.

If you refer to a woman as an "Íslendingur", and then refer to her using a pronoun, this pronoun technically has to be _hann_ (masculine) rather than _hún_ (fem.). But since _hann_ already has a more abstract meaning ("previously-mentioned grammatically masculine thing") than English pronouns like _he_, this isn't so strange for people who are already fluent in the language.


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## jasio

Hulalessar said:


> Are there any other languages where one is required in certain cases to refer to males by designations normally assigned to females (and vice versa)?



Albeit I am not sure, what you exactly meant, in Polish some professional position names exist only in grammatical masculine forms, such as "minister", "dyrektor", "prezes" ('a president of the company'), "prezydent" ('a president of the country'), etc. Many professions names can be "feminised" using "-ka" suffix (like "aktor" -> "aktorka"), but not those mentioned above. When such words refer to women, the rest of the sentence matches actual rather than grammatical gender, such as:

"Prezes (male) podpisał umowę"
"Prezes (female) podpisała umowę" - both mean "the president (of a company) has signed the contract", while "-a" suffix is used to decline the verb to feminine gender in past tense.


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## Frank78

Hulalessar said:


> Are there any other languages where one is required in certain cases to refer to males by designations normally assigned to females (and vice versa)?



It sometimes happen in German but mostly with the neuter gender.

Das Mädchen (neuter) ist 9 Jahre alt. Es geht in die Schule. - The girl is nine years old. *It* goes to school.

All dimunitives, words ending with -chen or -lein, are neuter.

Another example where natural and grammatical gender collide are "das Kind" (the child), the old-fashioned "das Weib" (wife) which are also neuter.


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## CapnPrep

Hulalessar said:


> Whilst there is clearly some "logic" in being strictly grammatical, referring to a male as _signora _strikes me as rather odd, but that is no doubt attributable to my first language lacking grammatical gender.


I think you will find that many Italians find it odd, too, and it's something that comes up more often in grammar books and language forums than in real life… In _signora guardia_, I think the _signora_ functions grammatically like an honorific adjective, and not as a title or form of address. You're not saying "this is someone who is a _signora_, and a _guardia_". And you cannot walk up to a male guard and call him "Signora!" 

The honorific feminine comes up more commonly in everyday Italian when you use _Lei_ to address a male.


Hulalessar said:


> I can recall when being taught French that, whatever the sex of the sentry, you needed to say _Elle est partie_ in answer to _Où est la sentinelle?_, but as far as I know one is not required to refer to a sentry as _Madame la sentinelle_ when referring to a male sentry.


You're right: you say _Monsieur la sentinelle_, _Madame le juge_, etc. The placement of the definite article in French makes it clear that _monsieur_ and _madame_ are in apposition, so you really are saying "this is a _monsieur_ who is _la sentinelle_". Now, ask some French people if you have to write_ Monsieur la sentinelle est *parti* _or_ *partie*_, and watch them squirm…


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## apmoy70

jasio said:


> Albeit I am not sure, what you exactly meant, in Polish some professional position names exist only in grammatical masculine forms, such as "minister", "dyrektor", "prezes" ('a president of the company'), "prezydent" ('a president of the country'), etc. Many professions names can be "feminised" using "-ka" suffix (like "aktor" -> "aktorka"), but not those mentioned above. When such words refer to women, the rest of the sentence matches actual rather than grammatical gender, such as:
> 
> "Prezes (male) podpisał umowę"
> "Prezes (female) podpisała umowę" - both mean "the president (of a company) has signed the contract", while "-a" suffix is used to decline the verb to feminine gender in past tense.


Similarly in Greek, many professional position names exist only in grammatical masculine form such as *«υπουργός»* [ipur'ɣos] (masc.) --> _minister_, *«δικαστής»* [ðika'stis] (masc.) --> _judge_, *«νομάρχης»* [no'marçis] (masc.) --> _prefect_ etc.



Frank78 said:


> It sometimes happen in German but mostly with the neuter gender.
> 
> Das Mädchen (neuter) ist 9 Jahre alt. Es geht in die Schule. - The girl is nine years old. *It* goes to school.
> 
> All dimunitives, words ending with -chen or -lein, are neuter.
> 
> Another example where natural and grammatical gender collide are "das Kind" (the child), the old-fashioned "das Weib" (wife) which are also neuter.


Similarly in Greek it mostly happens with the neuter, e.g. *«κορίτσι»* [ko'rit͡si] (neut.) --> _girl_, *«παιδί»* [pe'ði] (neut.) --> _child_ etc.
And in Greek also, most diminutives are neuter.


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## francisgranada

Hulalessar said:


> ... and find that where the grammatical gender does not match natural gender one is required to say (where the person talked about is male) things like:
> 
> _La signora guardia è sempre molto scrupolosa. _


Is _signora guardia_ really a male here or I have misunderstood something? ....

PS. _Guardia _is of fem. gender in this example (both _il_ and_ la_ _guardia _do exist)?


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## Quiviscumque

Let us remember the celebrated masculine "midons".


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## Hulalessar

francisgranada said:


> Is _signora guardia_ really a male here or I have misunderstood something? ....
> 
> PS. _Guardia _is of fem. gender in this example (both _il_ and_ la_ _guardia _do exist)?



It seems that _guardia _is only feminine.


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## fdb

It might be an idea to move this to the Italian forum. It would be good to hear what native speakers think about "_La signora guardia"._


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## Ben Jamin

jasio said:


> Albeit I am not sure, what you exactly meant, in Polish some professional position names exist only in grammatical masculine forms, such as "minister", "dyrektor", "prezes" ('a president of the company'), "prezydent" ('a president of the country'), etc. Many professions names can be "feminised" using "-ka" suffix (like "aktor" -> "aktorka"), but not those mentioned above. When such words refer to women, the rest of the sentence matches actual rather than grammatical gender, such as:
> 
> "Prezes (male) podpisał umowę"
> "Prezes (female) podpisała umowę" - both mean "the president (of a company) has signed the contract", while "-a" suffix is used to decline the verb to feminine gender in past tense.



1. The feminine "dyrektorka" exists in Polish, and has been widely used in colloquial speech. 
2. In Polish, the gender of the predicate follows the grammatical gender of the subject, not the sex of the person of the subject. 

The forms like "Prezes podpisała umowę" drives me mad, being a total corruption of the Polish language. It should be either "Prezes podpisał umowę" (even if it is a woman) or "Prezes Janina Kowalska podpisała umowę"

Strangely enough, this does not work the other way. Words of feminine gender are not mistreated this way while applied to masculine subjects: Oficer policji został ranny w zamachu bombowym, Ofiara zamachu została przewieziona do szpitala. *NOT*: „Ofiara zamachu **został ***przewieziony* do szpitala”.


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## Lugubert

I think the Swedish word for 'nurse' qualifies for this thread. _Sjuksköterska _is grammatically totally female, but is invariably applied to male nurses as well. Efforts to introduce analogous male _sjukskötare_ never made it. I think that the not too many male midwives also are grammatically female _barnmorskor_.

On many if not most other occasions, a gender neutral term has established itself without too significant protests. Or, legal texts start by announcing that for convenience, '(-)man' will refer to men as well as to women.


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## Gavril

It's interesting how languages with grammatical gender differences don't necessarily have lexical alternations to reflect semantic gender:




Icelandic
Slovene
_
Íslendingur_ "Icelandic man/woman" 
(grammatically masculine)
_Slovenec _"Slovenian man" 
_Slovenka_ "Slovenian woman"
_
talandi _"speaker" (id.)_govorec _"speaker (male)"
_govorka_ "speaker (female)"
_
læknir _"physician" (id.)
_zdravnik _"physician (male)"
_zdravnica _"physician (female)"




I wonder if there is any correlation between this and other features of a language?


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## Hulalessar

What I am getting at is not so much that something which is male may be grammatically feminine and that therefore any pronoun referring to it must be feminine, but rather that the requirement is that a noun which refers to females must be used in cases like _La signora guardia è sempre molto scrupolosa._ I think the idea that _signora _is thought of as a behaving like an adjective, i.e. that _signore _and _signora _are thought of as being the same word, which in a sense they are, seems a reasonable explanation. A speaker whose language has etymologically unrelated words for Mr and Mrs (or in the case of English where the etymological connection is not immediately apparent) is going to think of _signore _and _signora _as two distinct words and therefore find it odd. It would be interesting to know if the rule is one thought up by some academy.


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## Gavril

Hulalessar said:


> A speaker whose language has etymologically unrelated words for Mr and Mrs (or in the case of English where the etymological connection is not immediately apparent) is going to think of _signore _and _signora _as two distinct words and therefore find it odd. It would be interesting to know if the rule is one thought up by some academy.



A speaker of English (who isn't used to hearing/speaking other languages) won't be familiar with grammatical gender to begin with, and therefore s/he won't be used to the idea of "guard" having a specific gender. I'm not sure how relevant the irregularity between "Mr." and "Mrs." is.

It might be more interesting to see a Spanish speaker's reaction to the Italian use of "signora guardia", since the connection between "señor" and "señora" is transparent, but Spanish "guardia" in the sense of an individual guard (rather than a team or official body of guards) is masculine.


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## merquiades

Gavril said:


> A speaker of English (who isn't used to hearing/speaking other languages) won't be familiar with grammatical gender to begin with, and therefore s/he won't be used to the idea of "guard" having a specific gender. I'm not sure how relevant the irregularity between "Mr." and "Mrs." is.
> 
> It might be more interesting to see a Spanish speaker's reaction to the Italian use of "signora guardia", since the connection between "señor" and "señora" is transparent, but Spanish "guardia" in the sense of an individual guard (rather than a team or official body of guards) is masculine.



You can use both _un(a) guardia civil_, depending on the biological gender of the individual guard, but _la guardia civil _(la gendarmerie as a corps) is feminine.

Another example which is puzzling to people whose native language doesn't have grammatical gender are words like la víctima/ la victime/ la vittima and la persona/ la personne.  Even if you know the victim/person is a man you still must say _está muerta/ est morte/ è morta_ to make the noun and adjective agree grammatically.

There is discussion here on the Italian formal _Lei_.  You need to say _Le scivo per tenerLa informata_ even if you are talking to a man since Lei in essence is feminine (she)


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## apmoy70

Gavril said:


> It's interesting how languages with grammatical gender differences don't necessarily have lexical alternations to reflect semantic gender:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> IcelandicSlovene_
> Íslendingur_ "Icelandic man/woman"
> (grammatically masculine)_Slovenec _"Slovenian man"
> _Slovenka_ "Slovenian woman"_
> talandi _"speaker" (id.)_govorec _"speaker (male)"
> _govorka_ "speaker (female)"_
> læknir _"physician" (id.)_zdravnik _"physician (male)"
> _zdravnica _"physician (female)"
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder if there is any correlation between this and other features of a language?





Greek*«Έλληνας»* ['elinas] (learned, *«Έλλην»* ['elin]) "Greek-man"
(gramatically masculine)
*«Ελληνίδα»* [eli'niða] (Katharevousa form, _*«Ελληνίς»*_ [eli'nis]) "Greek-woman"
(gramatically feminine)​*«Ομιλητής»* [omili'tis] "male speaker"
(gramatically masculine)
*«Ομιλήτρια»* [omi'litri.a] "female speaker"
(gramatically feminine)​



but...​


Greek*«Ιατρός»* [i.a'tros] "male & female physician" (there's also the colloquialism *«γιατρίνα»* [ʝa'trina] "female physician" and the rustic *«γιατρέσσα»* [[ʝa'tresa] "female physician")*«Μηχανικός»* [mixani'kos] "male & female engineer"*«Ηθοποιός»* [iθopi'os] "actor/actress"

In general, Greek nouns of the Classical second declension are identical in both ancient and modern Greek (masculine and feminine nouns that have the suffix *«-ος»*).


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## Gavril

merquiades said:


> You can use both _un(a) guardia civil_, depending on the biological gender of the individual guard,



I tried to confirm whether _guardia_ had flexible gender, but for some reason, WR's Spanish-English dictionary only lists it as "nm" (masculine) rather than "nmf" (masc. or fem.),  and RAE doesn't list _guardia_ as meaning "individual guard" at all except in specific phrases like _guardia civil_.



> There is discussion here on the Italian rformal _Lei_.  You need to say _Le scivo per tenerLa informata_ even if you are talking to a man since Lei in essence is feminine (she)



Maybe the widespread use of _lei_ makes cases like _signora guardia_ seem less strange than they otherwise would?


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ...  Another example which is puzzling to people whose native language doesn't have grammatical gender are words like la víctima/ la victime/ la vittima and la persona/ la personne.  Even if you know the victim/person is a man you still must say _está muerta/ est morte/ è morta_ to make the noun and adjective agree grammatically


Maybe yes, but it is still not the same as to say e.g. _señora víctima_ (for illustration only) speaking about a man ... 

I think I understand CapnPrep's explanation (#5), however spontaneousely I would surely say _il signor guardia_ (speaking about a man) even in honorific meaning, because _signore _is not an adjetive that has to match the grammatical gender of the following noun. I can hardly imagine, for example, _il signor giudice_ instead of _la signora giudice_ when speaking about a woman (giudice _masc. =_  judge) ...


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## Lugubert

Perhaps thread related: I think that grammatical gender should trump natural gender in for example _professor emeritus_. I apply that description to males as well as to females. Swedish academia often refers to some _professor emerita__, _which I regard as a newfangled hybrid. If you today want to change Latin, why not use _professora emerita_ (or whatevs, I know not to next no Latin).

And I stubbornly inflect _data_ as a plural word.

I'm amused by the German practice of referring to any colleague M/F translator of mine as ÜbersetzerIn.


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## francisgranada

Gavril said:


> I tried to confirm whether _guardia_ had flexible gender ... and RAE doesn't list _guardia_ as meaning "individual guard" at all except in specific phrases like _guardia civil_.



 From DRAE:
 com. Individuo de este cuerpo.(i.e. de guardia civil)
 com. Individuo que pertenece a este cuerpo. (i.e. guardia municipal)
_
 com - nombre común en cuanto al género

_P.S. I think these examples are enough for our purposes, as I don't think (maybe I am wrong ...) that a common Spaniard, before using the noun _guardia_, will try to verify if he/she is really a member of the _guardia civil_ or _municipal_, and nothing else ...


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## Quiviscumque

Gavril said:


> I tried to confirm whether _guardia_ had flexible gender, but for some reason, WR's Spanish-English dictionary only lists it as "nm" (masculine) rather than "nmf" (masc. or fem.),  and RAE doesn't list _guardia_ as meaning "individual guard" at all except in specific phrases like _guardia civil
> _[...]



Because the "correct" word to denote a person is GUARDA (marked _com._ in the DRAE, that is, both femenine and masculine); however, GUARDIA has conquered this meaning, too, and the RAE has finally acknowledged that fact (see http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=guardia "Artículo enmendado").


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## Gavril

francisgranada said:


> From DRAE:
> com. Individuo de este cuerpo.(i.e. de guardia civil)
> com. Individuo que pertenece a este cuerpo. (i.e. guardia minucipal)
> _
> com - nombre común en cuanto al género_


_

Yes, just as I wrote, DRAE acknowledges specific phrases like guardia civil / municipal etc. in which guardia means "(individual) guard" and has flexible gender, but it doesn't list this meaning among the basic definitions at the start of the entry (except in the amended version of the entry, which I didn't see at first)._


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## fdb

There is also this:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2819189


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## CapnPrep

francisgranada said:


> I think I understand CapnPrep's explanation (#5), however spontaneousely I would surely say _il signor guardia_ (speaking about a man) even in honorific meaning, because _signore _is not an adjetive that has to match the grammatical gender of the following noun. I can hardly imagine, for example, _il signor giudice_ instead of _la signora giudice_ when speaking about a woman (giudice _masc. =_  judge) ...


For the moment, _il s__ignor guardia _and _la signora giudice_ are considered incorrect in Italian, but since some speakers find the correct forms awkward, the standard usage may change (or people may just decide that neither _signore_ nor _signora_ can be used appropriately in such contexts). Who knows?


Lugubert said:


> Swedish academia often refers to some _professor emerita__, _which I regard as a newfangled hybrid. If you today want to change Latin, why not use _professora emerita_ (or whatevs, I know not to next no Latin).


Of the two, _pr__ofessor emerita_ is in fact the more conservative solution, since it is very common for Latin 3rd declension forms to be epicene. Latin does not have a rule of creating feminine forms by adding _-a_ to a 3rd declension masculine (and turning it into a 1st declension form), and that is what you would need to create _p__rofessora_.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Is there a rule how to form feminine counterparts to words ending in -or? If it's -tor, it's (almost) always -trix, but what if the masculine form is somewhat irregular like in professor?


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## fdb

CapnPrep said:


> _pr__ofessor emerita_



We had this discussion before, with all the same arguments:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2755329&highlight=emerita


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## CapnPrep

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Is there a rule how to form feminine counterparts to words ending in -or? If it's -tor, it's (almost) always -trix, but what if the masculine form is somewhat irregular like in professor?


Most supinum stems in _-s_ simply admit no feminine agent noun…  See e.g. A&G 236.


fdb said:


> We had this discussion before, with all the same arguments:


But it's actually on-topic in this thread (by which I mean it totally ignores the original topic in the same way as most of the other replies ).


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## thegreathoo

In Serb/Cro/Bos I can only think of one case, midwife (_primalja_, _babica_).  A male nurse working in that field would always be referred to in female form because there is no male form.

There are a few cases of grammatically feminine nouns that are used for both males and females.  One examples is a word for a tradesman (_zanatlija_).  This word is grammatically feminine but naturally genderless or even masculine since tradesmen are mostly men.


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## caelum

Could "guardia" in Spanish be similar to "policía" in that we can have "la policía" to denote the police force in general but "un policía" to denote a single police man (and "una policía" for a police woman).


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> For the moment, _il s__ignor guardia _and _la signora giudice_ are considered incorrect in Italian, but since some speakers find the correct forms awkward, the standard usage may change ...


Yes. For example, there are 29 900  occurrences of "la signora giudice" and 69 700 occurrences of "il signor giudice" in Google. Supposing that most of the judges are/were men (males), the proportion around 3:7 may in theory even correspond to the proportion of the number of female judges to male judges. All in all, the usage of "la signora giudice" seems to be very common in Italian ...


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## merquiades

caelum said:


> Could "guardia" in Spanish be similar to "policía" in that we can have "la policía" to denote the police force in general but "un policía" to denote a single police man (and "una policía" for a police woman).



That is the way I understand it and use it.  _Un(a) guardia_ but _la guardia civil_, _un(a) policía_ but _la policía_, and _un(a) guía_ but _la guía_ (book) [yes, the last one is not really the same, I know]  There probably are more.  I didn't know _un(a) guardia_ was supposed to be a sub-standard replacement of _un(a) guarda_. Besides _un guardia civil_ there is also _un guardia urbano_ and _un guardia de seguridad_. I'm sure all of these are used. _Un guardia_ must be commonplace or even preferred in Spain as that is the only word I picked up, but like a sponge I picked up a lot of bad habits there.   Perhaps _guardia_ was influenced by _policía_. That makes sense, but when exactly did _un policía_ come about, when it replaced _un alguacil_?

Italian seems to be more liberal with the feminine gender applied to men.  In Spanish for example one would never consider saying to a man:  _La llamo a Vd. para mantenerla informada_ just because _Usted_ derives from _Vuestra Merced_ and _Merced_ is a feminine noun.  This seems to be the rationale behind using _Lei_ (formal you),_La signora guardia_,_ La signora giudice_ and several other forms or titles in standard Italian.



			
				thegreathoo said:
			
		

> In Serb/Cro/Bos I can only think of one case, midwife (primalja, babica). A male nurse working in that field would always be referred to in female form because there is no male form.


  This reminds me that there is apparently hesitation in French between _un sage-femme/ une sage-femme homme_ for "midwife".  It's awkward because the term literally means a "wise-woman".


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ...  _Un(a) guardia_ but _la guardia civil_, _un(a) policía_ but _la policía_, and _un(a) guía_ but _la guía_ (book) ...


I think this is perfectly o.k. and not even "unnatural" because e.g. _policía _in the sense of a person is a secondary and different usage/meaning of _policía _(as organization, corps). Similar examples do exist also in Italian. (The only example that comes to my mind at the moment is _capostanza_, which can be both masculine and feminine, even if _capo _is of masc. gender). 

In case of _víctima, persona,_ etc... the original/primary usage/meaning of the noun is fully maintained (regardless if it is applied to men or women). Thus in these cases the grammatical gender is "strongly bounded" to the proper noun and this tends to impede any possible changing of the grammatical geneder of the noun. Of course, everything is possible  ... 

So, the problem is not the gender of the noun _guardia_. When we can say "Pedro es una buena persona" why couldn't we say "Pietro è una buona guardia" ? ...  Both the sentences are grammatically correct and, I think, totally natural. The "problem" is the usage of the noun _signora _refering to a male. The "logic"  of this kind of concordance, i.e. that the noun _guardia _(fem.) requires the usage of the noun  _signora _(fem.), is understandable. However, I can't find any _convincing _reason/justification why it _should _be so, or in other words, why _signora guardia_ would be "more grammatical" than _signor guardia_ (in case of a male guardsman, of course).


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## caelum

We also have examples such as _un modelo del mundo_ pero _él es un modelo / ella es una modelo_, but then _veo una estrella en el cielo _y _él es una estrella del rock / ella es una estrella del rock._


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## merquiades

francisgranada said:


> So, the problem is not the gender of the word _guardia_. When we can say "Pedro es una buena persona" why couldn't we say "Pietro è una buona guardia" ? ...  Both the sentences are grammatically correct and, I think, totally "natural". The "problem" is the usage of the noun _signora _refering to a male. The "logic"  of this kind of concordance, i.e. that the noun _guardia _(fem.)requires the usage of _signora _(fem.), is understandable. However, I can't find any _convincing _reason/justification why it _should _be so, or in other words, why _signora guardia_ would be "more grammatical" than _signor guardia_ (in case of a male guardsman, of course).


Yes, I see what you mean.   Italian obviously has a different sensitivity about gender and adheres more strictly to the gender of the primary noun in a group, and coalesces around that.  That's the only way to explain "la signora guardia".  We could give quite a few reasons to justify _"*il signore guardia".  Questo signore è guardia_.... drop the verb and _signore_ would work as an attribute in opposition to _guardia_... _Questo signore guardia_.  Yet, if that construction is unacceptable in Italian, we have no choice but to see _signora_ as an adjective that modifies _guardia_ and has to be feminine singular.

Edit:  I wonder what Italian does with the male of _una levatrice_?


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## francisgranada

merquiades said:


> ... Italian obviously has a different sensitivity about gender and adheres more strictly to the gender of the primary noun in a group, and coalesces around that.  That's the only way to explain "la signora guardia"...


Yes, however I have some doubts regarding this _different sensitivity_, i.e. if it is really _spontaneaous ... _(my _ad hoc_ "research" [post #31] seems to suggest the contrary).


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## Gavril

thegreathoo said:


> In Serb/Cro/Bos I can only think of one case, midwife (_primalja_, _babica_).  A male nurse working in that field would always be referred to in female form because there is no male form.
> 
> There are a few cases of grammatically feminine nouns that are used for both males and females.  One examples is a word for a tradesman (_zanatlija_).  This word is grammatically feminine but naturally genderless or even masculine since tradesmen are mostly men.



But do you say, for example, "_*gospođa* babica / primalja / zanatlija_" regardless of whether the person in question is a man or woman?

Also, do you happen to know the etymological reason why _zanatlija_ is feminine? It looks like an agent noun derived from a verb, but I can't tell what verb it's based on.

(Thanks)


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## merquiades

francisgranada said:


> Yes, however I have some doubts regarding this _different sensitivity_, i.e. if it is really _spontaneaous ... _(my _ad hoc_ "research" [post #31] seems to suggest the contrary).



In French, at least, feminizing a profession by adding a _Madame_ seems to be common and preferred by l'Académie Française (there was a thread about that somewhere):  _Madame le juge, Madame le préfet, Madame le président, Madame le professeur_.  But _Monsieur la sage-femme_ would seem bizarre.  If memory serves me well they stated that the masculine has a common unaffected function and actually serves to make women equal, rather than inventing a special form for them.  That's the same rationale that is used in the US to make everyone an actor now, no one an actress, same for flight attendant... etc.  Using the masculine in lieu of feminine is thus rather common practice.  That's how I would see _La signora giudice_ and _Madame le juge_ (not modifying the noun) rather than the Spanish _Jueza_. 

The example of _guardia_ is different and is working in a different way.  It's not _il signore guardia_ or even _la signore guardia_ or _la guardia signore_.  _Signore_ has to be seen as some type of adjective then, _guardia_ forcing it to become feminine.  It would be like your example:  _Pietro è una buona guardia, è una persona molto brava, è una povera vittima, è una signora guardia_.  
I asked what was done with _levatrice_ to compare.


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## CapnPrep

francisgranada said:


> Yes. For example, there are 29 900  occurrences of "la signora giudice" and 69 700 occurrences of "il signor giudice" in Google.


Unfortunately, the estimates that Google gives, and any numbers over 1,000, are quite unreliable and unusable even for casual research. I clicked through to the last page of results and only got about 130 hits for _la signora giudice_ and about 680 for _il signor giudice _(540) + _il signore giudice _(140). And of course there is no easy way to determine how many of the _signor(e)_ examples actually refer to a female judge.


francisgranada said:


> All in all, the usage of "la signora giudice" seems to be very common in Italian ...


In any case, there are definitely speakers who use this form, whether totally naturally or as a conscious choice. But someone who accepts _la signora giudice_ will not necessarily accept _il signor(e) guardia_ (or vice versa).


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## thegreathoo

Gavril said:


> But do you say, for example, "_*gospođa* babica / primalja / zanatlija_" regardless of whether the person in question is a man or woman?


 No.  It would be Mr. midwife (_gospodin babica_, which sounds weird).  Although, Mr. and Mrs. is generally used to formally address a person, and usually in conjunction with an official title or a last name, such as Mr. president.  Use of Mr. with name of profession is not idiomatic in the sense that it sounds over the top or snide depending on situation.



Gavril said:


> Also, do you happen to know the etymological reason why _zanatlija_ is feminine? It looks like an agent noun derived from a verb, but I can't tell what verb it's based on.(Thanks)


The word is coined from the word _zanat _(trade, eng.) and suffix -lija.  Compare to _be_č_lija (a man from Vienna, coined from Be_č (Vienna) and suffix -lija).  However, a woman from Vienna is _bečlijka, or bečanka_. Also, the true musculine form for a man from Vienna is _bečanin_.


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> ... In any case, there are definitely speakers who use this form, whether totally naturally or as a conscious choice. But someone who accepts _la signora giudice_ will not necessarily accept _il signor(e) guardia_ (or vice versa).


I agree, of course.


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## Awwal12

Gavril said:


> I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but in Icelandic (which has masculine, feminine and neuter genders), nouns referring to residents of a country generally have fixed masculine gender: they don't "adapt" to the semantic gender of the person in question.


In Russian the situation is partly similar, but is even more complicated.
Many professions have only masculine words for them, or feminine variants do exist but are colloquial and disrespectful.
Of course, since in Russian most words (including also past forms of verbs) have grammatical gender, there is always a problem of grammatical agreement between them.
And when designating females, such words still demand masculine attributives, BUT in the same time feminine predicates (when the predicate can have a gender, of course).
"Иванова - хороший врач." - Ivanova (f.) is a good (m.) doctor (m.).
"Врач вошла в кабинет." - The doctor (m.) entered (f.) the room.


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## Gavril

Awwal12 said:


> In Russian the situation is partly similar, but is even more complicated.
> Many professions have only masculine words for them, or feminine variants do exist but are colloquial and disrespectful.
> Of course, since in Russian most words (including also past forms of verbs) have grammatical gender, there is always a problem of grammatical agreement between them.
> And when designating females, such word still demand masculine attributives, BUT in the same time feminine predicates (when the predicate can have a gender, of course).
> "Иванова - хороший врач." - Ivanova (f.) is a good (m.) doctor (m.).
> "Врач вошла в кабинет." - The doctor (m.) entered (f.) the room.



Just out of curiosity, if you formed a predicate with the verb "to be", such as "The doctor is sick right now", would the adjective adapt to the semantic gender of the doctor?


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## francisgranada

Awwal12 said:


> "Иванова - хороший врач." - Ivanova (f.) is a good (m.) doctor (m.).
> "Врач вошла в кабинет." - The doctor (m.) entered (f.) the room.


For those who have followed the disussion about "la signora guardia" but do not understand Russian, in Italan it would be something like this (literally, for illustration):

 Ivanova (f.) è un buon medico (m.).
** *(Il)  medico (m.)  è entrat*a* (f.) nell'ufficio (o studio, ecc...)

(this is not a common Slavic feature though, but an interesting solution ...)


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## Angelo di fuoco

Gavril said:


> Just out of curiosity, if you formed a predicate with the verb "to be", such as "The doctor is sick right now", would the adjective adapt to the semantic gender of the doctor?



When speaking about Ivanova, both "врач болен" & "врач больна" are possible options, in my opinion.


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## Gavril

francisgranada said:


> For those who have followed the disussion about "la signora guardia" but do not understand Russian, in Italan it would be something like this (literally, for illustration):
> 
> Ivanova (f.) è un buon medico (m.).
> (Il)  medico (m.)  è entrat*a* (f.) nell'ufficio.
> 
> (this is not a common Slavic feature, but an interesting solution ...)



I'm confused: are you saying that Italian is actually like this (_Il medico è entrata ..._) or are you temporarily "modifying" Italian grammar to illustrate what Awwal12 was saying about Russian?


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## francisgranada

Gavril said:


> I'm confused: are you saying that Italian is actually like this (_Il medico è entrata ..._) or are you temporarily "modifying" Italian grammar to illustrate what Awwal12 was saying about Russian?


No, no ... I am only illustrating (comparing) the Italian with Russian showing the two different "solutions". 


> With all due respect, I think Awwal12's explanation was pretty clear on its own, even though I'm not at all fluent in Russian.


I agree (I've no doubts about Awwal12's explanation).

P.S. I've put an asterisc before the second sentence ...


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## francisgranada

In Slovak (a Western Slavic language) it works like this:

_"Иванова - хороший врач." - Ivanova (f.) is a good (m.) doctor (m.)._
 Ivanová (f.) je dobrá lekárka (f.) - _preferred_
 Ivanová (f.) je dobrý lekár (m.) - _possible

"Врач вошла в кабинет." - The doctor (m.) entered (f.) the room._
Lekárka (f.) vošla (f.) do ordinácie - _correct_
** *Lekár (m.) vošla (f.) do ordinácie -_ impossible_

(_lekárka _is the feminine version of _lekár -_ physician, doctor)

*********
P.S. For curiosity (to show the "logic"), the Slovak usage of _pani _(_signora_, feminine) with _doktor _(_dottore_, masculine):  

Pani (f.) doktorka (f.) vošla (f.) do ordinácie -_ correct and common_ 
Pani (f.) doktor (m.) vošla (f.) do ordinácie - _used, but less common and ("oficially") considered incorrect

_(_doktorka _is the feminine version of _doktor_, but as _doktor _is also an academic title, there is some dilemma around the spontaneous usage of the feminine version in some cases ...)


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## punctuate

Gavril said:


> Just out of curiosity, if you formed a predicate with the verb "to be", such as "The doctor is sick right now", would the adjective adapt to the semantic gender of the doctor?


The safest solution, and one that comes out spontaneously, is врач болеет (no gender): врач болеет, приходите через недельку. Actually, наша врач болеет is also possible, just like наш врач больна is, but they are more borderline. I explain this this way: that doctor that comes in the nominal predicate is a different doctor than Ivanova is; it is a generic doctor, one that does not have any sex. While when you apply a description to the subject, you maytreat the subject in any way: either as a reference to a person (a woman, Ivanova, the gender follows from that), or as a reference to a doctor (a person of profession, the grammatical gender is masculine).


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## Awwal12

Gavril said:


> Just out of curiosity, if you formed a predicate with the verb "to be", such as "The doctor is sick right now", would the adjective adapt to the semantic gender of the doctor?


The trick is that in Russian the copula verb "to be" is virtually always omitted in present tense, and its present tense form has no personal, gender or number variations anyway - it's always есть /yest'/ (it probably would just disappear from the language, but it has other, not copula-related uses, as in constructions like 'I have smth', 'there is smb' etc.). The future forms (like in 'the doctor will be sick') are also out of the question here, since they can change in person and number but not in gender. And in the past tense the verb would take the semantic gender as described above - "врач была больна" (the doctor (m.) was (f.) sick (f.)); note that the adjective here is a part of the predicate and hence is also feminine.

In present and future forms the adjective of the predicate would be also feminine, of course: врач больна (the doctor (m.) (is) sick (f.)), врач будет больна (the doctor (m.) will be sick (f.)).


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