How to determine the gender of nouns?

The correct definition of the gender of nouns allows you to avoid mistakes in their agreement with verbs in the past tense ( the coffee is cold or cooled down) and adjectives ( delicious coffee or delicious).

Since most often the grammatical gender of nouns does not correlate directly with lexical meaning words, whether a noun belongs to the masculine, neuter or feminine gender has to be memorized (memorized). This is most difficult for those who study Russian as a foreign language.

For native speakers of Russian as a native language, difficulties with determining the grammatical gender arise with the following types of words:

• the most extensive group is indeclinable borrowed nouns: coffee, cocoa, Bordeaux, whiskey, brandy, boa, brie, slang, euro, Esperanto;
• foreign geographical names: Monaco, Limpopo, Tokyo, Helsinki, Tartu, Capri, Chile, Yellow River;
• abbreviations: UN, UNESCO, NATO, CIS, PRO, VAK, TASS, GLONASS.
• some nouns ending in -Л in the form im. n. (doubts arise whether to refer these words to the second or third declension): tulle, callus, polish, roofing felt, valve.
• nouns, plural form h. which usually denotes a pair of shoes: shoes, boots, slippers, sandals and so on.
• compound nouns.

Let's take a closer look at each of these types of words.

1. Gender of indeclinable borrowed nouns

Most inflected nouns that look like inflected neuter nouns (such as sea And window), belong to the middle gender: fragrant cocoa, aged Bordeaux, heady chardonnay, hot cappuccino, locomotive depot, new coat, wicker planter.

Word coffee strict literary norm prescribes to use as a noun male: strong coffee is already cold. However, in a relaxed oral speech neuter agreement is acceptable: the coffee is cold.

It should be noted that there are many exceptions to this rule related to the influence of various analogies (such as the presence of a commonly used inflected Russian synonym; the possibility of substituting an inflected word denoting a generic concept, etc.). So, the words are masculine Euro(because most of the names of monetary units are masculine, cf.: dollar, ruble, pound, franc, tugrik...), brie, suluguni(influence of the generic concept cheese), sirocco(word influence wind), penalty(influence of the Russian synonym penalty kick). The words are feminine avenue(cf. Street), kohlrabi(cabbage), salami(sausage), etc.

Some words can be used in the form of two genders. Such words include, for example, nouns that outwardly resemble inflected nouns in the plural form. hours: aged whiskey And aged whiskey; armenian brandy And armenian brandy. Therefore, in all doubtful cases, to determine the generic affiliation of a word, one should refer to the dictionaries of the Russian language.

2. Genus of foreigners geographical names

Most often, the gender of such names is determined by the generic word: distant (principality) Monaco, wide (river) Limpopo, densely populated (city) Tokyo. If two different generic words can be used, then agreement options are possible: independent (state) Haiti, independent (country) Haiti, distant (island) Haiti, beautiful (city) Brescia And beautiful (province) Brescia.

In some cases, the gender of a noun is established by tradition, so a dictionary check is required.

3. Genus of compound words (abbreviations)

The genus of abbreviations is usually determined by the key word in the decoding of the abbreviation or by the generic word: NATO (alliance) decided, Moscow State University (university) accepted new students, CIS (commonwealth) took the initiative, UNESCO (organization) declared 2009 the Year of Gogol.

More information about the correct use of abbreviations in the text can be found in the article How to use abbreviations correctly.

4. Gender of nouns ending in -Л

The second declension and the masculine gender include, in particular, the words: aerosol, polish, lampoon, vaudeville, quantile, quartile, endgame, tulle, tar paper, flat.

The third declension and feminine gender include words such as mezzanine, corn, rosin, vacuole, triol.

Generic affiliation and belonging to the second or third declension is checked in such cases in dictionary order. For example, you can use the dictionaries in the "Word Check" section on our portal.

5. Names of shoes and paired items

It should be remembered:

And also: gaiters - one gaiter, leggings - one gaiter, sideburns - one sideburn, leggings - one leggings.

BUT: golfs - one golf, rails - one rail, adjustments - one adjustment.

In addition, there is a two-gender noun high fur boots. If in many h. the stress falls on the end of the word (high fur boots, -o c), then the form singular -one oz. If in many h. the stress falls on the stem ( at nta), form them. p. units h. - at nta.

6. Compound nouns

In this lesson, we will learn what part of speech is called a “noun”, what a noun means, what genders nouns have, how to determine the gender of a noun, and which nouns have no gender.

noun - part of speech

Knowing the world, our ancestors gave names to surrounding objects and phenomena. Look around - everything is named, everything has its own name. The noun is the oldest and most important part of speech. Let's learn more about her.

A noun is a part of speech that designates an object and answers a question. Who? or What?

What does the noun mean

The nouns are the names of things. For example: table, ball, book.

All nouns belong to one of three genders:

masculine - horse, boy, dad, governor;

feminine - earth, mother, daughter, rye;

neuter gender - ring, banner, village.

In Russian there is also a group of nouns generic, which can denote a male and female person:

big (big) sweetheart, my (my) colleague.

Common nouns in modern Russian, as a rule, have colloquial stylistic coloring and express an emotionally expressive assessment of disapproval:

crybaby (colloquial), deadhead (colloquial, disapproved), bully (colloquial), bully (colloquial) etc.;

less often they are stylistically neutral:

cripple (neutr.), orphan (neutr.) and so on.

Indeclinable nouns of foreign origin distributed by gender as follows:

belong to the masculine

names of male persons porter, entertainer),

names of animals and birds kangaroo, flamingo);

the feminine gender refers to the names of female persons ( lady, madam);

neuter gender includes inanimate nouns ( muffler, subway).

Exceptions:

the masculine gender includes the words coffee (drink), sirocco (wind), tornado (hurricane), suluguni (cheese), Pashto, Bengali, and other names of the languages ​​of the peoples of the world;

feminine are:

tsetse (fly), ivasi (herring), kohlrabi (cabbage), salami (sausage);

type nouns protege, counterpart, hippie, incognito relate both masculine and feminine;

only in plural the word is used blinds.

At indeclinable nouns of foreign origin fluctuations in gender can be observed, while one of the forms is stylistically neutral, and the other is colloquial, for example:

coffee(m. r., neutr.) - coffee(cf. p., colloquial);

mango(cf. r., neutr.) - mango(m. R., colloquial);

brandy(cf. r., neutr.) - brandy(m. p., colloquial), etc.

The genus of indeclinable proper names of foreign origin is determined by generic word:

Sochi- m.r. (city); Mississippi- and. R. (river); The Times- and. R. (newspaper); Ontario- cf. R. (lake).

Genus abbreviations determined by the type of the keyword:

VDNH- and. R. (exhibition); VVC- m.r. (center), etc.

Note.

If the abbreviation is declined, then the gender is determined by the end, for example: university (-a, -y, -om, -e) - m. (cf .: higher educational institution).

The gender of indeclinable nouns is indicated syntactically in the forms of adjectives, participles, etc.:

strong coffee; at first Madame followed him, then Monsieur replaced her. (P.)

Pay attention!

Difficulties arise in determining the gender of some nouns; they need to be remembered:

tulle, -i (m. p.), shampoo, -i (m. p.), piano, -i (m. p.), veil, -i (f. p.).

In case of difficulty, you should refer to the spelling dictionary.

Nouns denoting people and animals are only masculine or female. Genus is determined by the sex of a person or animal:

boy - girl
brother - sister
cat Kitty

Nouns ending in suffixes – yonok are always masculine

child*
kitty*
bear cub*
*These words are diminutive.

There are masculine nouns ending in -а, -я. These nouns refer to males:

man
youth
grandfather
uncle
dad

These are also abbreviated male names:

Alexander - Sasha
Alexey - Alyosha
Vladimir - Vova
Dmitry - Dima
Ivan - Vanya
Nikolai - Kolya
Konstantin - Kostya
Peter - Peter

I will remember the feminine
And I'll say, "She's mine."
And remember the masculine gender
And again I will say: "He is mine."
Middle gender: "It is mine."
This rule is mine!

This little poem will help us to correctly determine the gender of nouns.

In this lesson, we learned that a noun is a part of speech that denotes an object and answers the questions who? What? Nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter.

The main grammatical feature that is inherent in almost every part of speech is the category of gender. How many genders do nouns have and how to correctly determine this category in this part of speech? You will find answers to these and other questions in the article.

What is the gender of nouns?

The gender category of nouns in Russian- a grammatical feature indicating the generic (gender) affiliation of an object (living being, phenomenon) called a noun or its absence. Gender is a constant grammatical feature of nouns and is studied in the 6th grade.

Features of the category of noun gender

There are three kinds of nouns in Russian:

• Male (he). Masculine nouns in the singular I. p. have endings -a, -i, and zero.

  Examples of masculine nouns: dad, uncle, knife, table, hawk.

• Female (she). Feminine nouns in the singular I. p. have the endings -а, -я, and zero.

  Examples of feminine nouns: wife, nanny, night, glory, desert.

• Medium (it). Nouns of the neuter gender in the singular I. p. have the endings -o, -e.

  Examples of neuter nouns: swamp, gold, sun, lake, jam.

There is also a class of words, the so-called common gender, which, depending on the context, can be used in both masculine and feminine

(bore, sissy, crybaby, clever, greedy).

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How to determine the gender of a noun?

In animate nouns, the gender coincides with the gender of a living being, person (father, interlocutor - m.p., girlfriend, gossip - f. p).

For all nouns, gender can be determined by the grammatical form of the adjective that agrees with the noun:

• masculine whose? Which? (white snow, good advice);
• Feminine. Nouns agree with adjectives that answer questions - whose? which? (fresh newspaper, cheerful girlfriend);
• Neuter gender. Nouns agree with adjectives that answer questions - whose? which? (green field, tall building).

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gender of nouns

1. What is the gender system of nouns in Russian?

All nouns of the Russian language in the form singular can be assigned to one of the following genera: male, female, average, general.

2. How to determine the gender of a noun?

The gender of a noun can be determined by agreeing with it a pronoun my:

my son, my governor, my curtain, my house- masculine; my wife, my wall, my night- feminine gender, my window, my sky, my animal- neuter gender.

For most nouns denoting people, gender can be determined by gender: my apprentice, my grandfather(masculine); my mother, my sister(feminine gender).

The gender of nouns is determined by the singular form. Nouns used only in the plural have no kind: manger, pasta, trousers, pitchfork.

3. What nouns are common gender?

Common nouns are nouns that characterize person, give him evaluation characteristic; they have endings -and I and belong to the 1st declension: slob, starter, sing, hard worker, dirty, dude, drunkard, sissy, sleepyhead, crybaby.

Common nouns can refer to both male and female people: What a slob you are! What a slob you are!

4. How to determine the gender of immutable nouns?

gender of invariable nouns calling people, determined by sex: brave hidalgo, refined lady.

Nouns denoting professions and occupation, are masculine: military attache, night porter. Nouns of the 2nd declension with a zero ending, naming persons by profession ( doctor, professor, associate professor, driver etc.), even if used in relation to females, are still nouns male.

Invariable nouns that call animals, are masculine, although when referring to a female they can be used as feminine nouns: Australian kangaroo, funny chimpanzee; chimpanzees feeding their babies. Exceptions: tsetse(fly), iwashi(fish) - feminine.

immutable inanimate nouns are neuter: night taxi, tasty stew, new blinds, fragrant cocoa, aged Bordeaux, heady chardonnay, hot cappuccino, locomotive depot, new coat, wicker planter. Exceptions: coffee, penalty, sirocco(masculine); avenue, salami(feminine gender).

Genus foreign geographical names determined by the generic word: distant Monaco(this is a principality, i.e. a neuter noun, which means the word Monaco also neuter) wide Limpopo(river - f.r.), densely populated Tokyo(city - m.r.). If two different generic words can be used, then agreement options are possible: independent Haiti(state - s.r.), independent Haiti(country - female) and distant Haiti(island - m.r.); lovely Brescia(city - m.r.) and beautiful Brescia(province - female). In some cases, the gender of a noun is established by tradition, so a dictionary check is required.

In Russian, the gender of nouns is determined on two grounds: by the end of the nominative case of the singular and by the meaning of the noun, namely, by the relation of persons and animals called by this noun to the natural sex. It is necessary to know what gender a particular noun belongs to in order to correctly change it in cases, to correctly combine it with other words in a sentence. That is why in dictionaries indications of gender are a mandatory characteristic of nouns.

It is customary to distinguish five groups of nouns according to their gender:

Masculine nouns;

Feminine nouns;

Nouns of the middle gender;

Nouns of general gender;

Nouns whose gender cannot be determined.

TO masculine are nouns ending in hard consonant stem or at th (house, father, balance, bank, barter, credit, tea, edge), all nouns in -tel (teacher, writer, switch, indicator), month names(January, February, April, June, July, September, October, November, December), borrowed nouns with base on -l, -n, -r (ensemble, shampoo, piano, vestibule, calendar).

TO feminine -and I (wife, land, idea, game, computer science, migration, firm, function), nouns ending in soft consonant stem (life, steel, night) as well as nouns ending in hard sizzling (youth, lies, rye, gouache, retouching, nonsense, falseness, wilderness).

TO neuter include nouns with the ending -o, -e (window, business, field, bankruptcy, godlessness, good, wealth, department, religion, application, lending, distribution), as well as all nouns -me (time, crown, burden, stirrup, udder, name, banner, flame, tribe, seed) and noun child .

The exception is nouns with the ending -and I and nouns with zero ending in soft consonant, which belong to the masculine gender, as they denote males: uncle, young man, Muscovite, cabin boy, bear. TO masculine also applies to the noun journeyman .

To nouns generic are words denoting persons both male and female and usually having estimated meaning: crybaby, bully, clever, good fellow, greedy, glutton, dormouse, sneak.

General nouns denoting males agree with the masculine forms of adjectives, pronouns, and past tense or subjunctive verbs, and nouns denoting females agree with the corresponding feminine forms. Wed: He is so smart! She is so smart! What a crybaby our Seryozha! What a crybaby our Masha! He is an orphan. She is an orphan. My colleague carefully read the documents. My colleague carefully read the documents.

The use of words of a general gender should be distinguished from nouns with an evaluative meaning, but not related to words of a common gender and characterizing a person, cf .: muddler(common gender: What a mess Misha! What a messy Masha!– hat(feminine gender: What a hat our Misha! What a hat is our Masha!); cunning(common gender: What a cunning Kolya! What a sly Olya!– fox(feminine gender: What a fox our Kolya is!).

When determining the gender of nouns denoting persons and animals, it is very important to take into account the natural gender of the latter:

TO masculine male persons and animals: grandfather, father, uncle, bull, horse, lion;

- nouns that mean names of persons by occupation: teacher, doctor, teacher, lawyer, judge, engineer, banker, manager, entrepreneur, systems engineer, assistant, director, head;

- To feminine are nouns that refer to female persons and animals: aunt, niece, granddaughter, mother, actress, she-wolf, lioness, bear, sheep, goat, chicken.

Considerable difficulties arise when using nouns denoting persons by occupation or profession.

Masculine nouns denoting male and female persons of the type doctor, engineer, technologist, banker, assistant, manager, businessman, as a rule, they agree with adjectives in the masculine form (i.e., at the end), and with verbs - in the masculine or feminine form, depending on whether the person belongs to the male or female gender (i.e., by meaning). For example: Experienced lawyer Ivanova won the process.– Experienced lawyer Ivanov won the process; The local doctor Smirnova visited the patient.– The local doctor Smirnov visited the patient.

Russian has nouns whose genus cannot be determined.. These include the words Not having singular forms: cream, ink, memoirs, sledges, scissors, trousers, vacations, chess, name days, christenings, commemorations, farewells, Cordillera, Sochi.

Considerable difficulties in the aspect of speech culture are nouns (usually borrowed from other languages), which do not change by case. (highway, subway, coffee and etc.). They're called inflexible. Attempts to change such words lead to blunders like: He returned for his coat. The gender of such words cannot be determined by the ending, it is determined by the meaning of the word, associated in most cases with the concept animateness/inanimateness.

Most inanimate indeclinable nouns are neuter words. (foyer, cinema, coat, highway, khaki, pince-nez, boucle).

Animated indeclinable nouns can be both masculine and feminine, depending on what gender they denote, that is, they correspond to the gender of a real person or animal. Wed: a magnificent maestro, a military attache, a famous impresario, a charming lady, a courteous lady; my counterpart– my counterpart; your protégé– your protege; gray kangaroo– gray kangaroo, bright cockatoo– bright cockatoo.

From this general rule there are exceptions:

1) indeclinable nouns that have a generic name in Russian correlate with the gender of the latter: salami- and. R. (sausage), kohlrabi- and. R. (cabbage);

2) sometimes the gender of an indeclinable noun is determined by the gender of the word, which is common and declinable for such nouns: avenue defined as a feminine noun because it corresponds to a feminine inflected noun street, argo- with a synonymous masculine noun jargon, suluguni- with a masculine noun (cheese), aloe- m.r. (flower), Hindi- m.r. (language), Capri- m.r. (island), Mississippi- and. R. (river), Tbilisi- m.r. (city);

3) noun coffee- masculine, although Lately V colloquial speech it can be used as a neuter noun: tasty coffee And delicious coffee, one coffee And one coffee;

4) the names of the letters refer to words of the middle gender: Russian A, capital B; names of sounds - neuter or masculine: unstressed A– unstressed A; Note names are neuter: long mi;

5) the gender of compound abbreviated indeclinable nouns depends, as a rule, on the gender of the reference word of the phrase: UN- and. R. (Organization United Nations), RGPU- m.r. (Russian State Pedagogical university).

In Russian, nouns are actively used, which are formed as a result of the addition of two words. Such compound nouns can be animate or inanimate. (Governor General, female astronaut, conference room). In animate nouns, the gender is determined by the word indicating the gender of the person (female astronaut- and. R.; miracle hero- m. R.). For inanimate nouns, the gender is determined by the gender of the first word. (museum apartment- m.r.; dressing gown- cf. R.; amphibious aircraft- m.r.; boarding school- and. R.). If a compound noun has an indeclinable noun in its composition, then the gender is determined by the gender of the inflected word (cafe-dining room- and. R.; comedy buff- and. R.; taxi car- m. R.).

Gender of nouns formed with suffixes -search-, -ishk-, is determined by the gender of the noun from which these nouns are formed (voice - voice: m. r.; oar - oar seek e: cf. R.; snake - snake seek A: and. R.; Brother - Brother ish ka: m. r.; letter - letters ish to: cf. R; newspaper - newspaper R.).