# neuter nouns



## jester.

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> Neuter nouns look masculine in the singular, but act feminine in plural.
> 
> Ex: (train)
> 
> *un tren, multe trenuri*
> 
> With adjective:
> 
> *un tren frumos/rapid (mas.)*
> *trei trenuri frumoase/rapide (fem.)*


*

*Thanks to Robbie I know how Romanian neuter nouns work.

Now I wonder why those nouns are such hermaphrodites. Why doesn't Romanian have "real" neuter nouns? How has this concept of the switching gender developed?

Ok, this is a difficult question, obviously, but maybe someone knows...


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## modus.irrealis

Hi,

That's like the only thing I know about Romanian, since I asked pretty much same question about neuters a few months ago, and the same Robbie answered me. And then it seemed like such an interesting linguistic phenomenon that I went and read up on it.

What I learned is that as Latin developed the neuters in the singular looked just like masculines so that's what they became, but in the plural they ended in -a so they looked like feminines and were reinterpreted as feminines.

I understand that Italian has some nouns that are like this but they aren't as extensive as in Romanian. And in French there's nouns (like joie) which are feminines that come from Latin neuter plurals (gaudia in this case), but they have become singular.


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## jester.

I see. That explanation makes a lot of sense. Thank you


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## MarX

Bunä!

I've got a related question:

Did the neuter nouns in Romanian actually develop from a group of nouns that acted masculine in singular and feminine in plural, and then named "neuter"? Or did they really descend from Latin neuter?

Grüsse,


MarX


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