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Gender |
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Gender is an inherent feature of nouns. Unlike number and case, the gender of a noun is invariable. All inflected wordforms of a noun have the same gender.
The three genders
German has three genders. They are usually indicated by the definite article:
| Gender |
Article |
| masculine |
der |
| feminine |
die |
| neuter |
das |
The gender of a noun is important in sentences and clauses. When a noun is combined with an article, an adjective or a pronoun, the form of the accompanying word usually agrees with the gender of the noun:
| masculine |
feminine |
neuter |
| der Mann |
die Frau |
das Kind |
| ein dünner Mann |
eine dünne Frau |
ein dünnes Kind |
| jeder Mann |
jede Frau |
jedes Kind |
See also:
Agreement adjective-noun
Agreement article-noun
Agreement pronoun-noun
Natural gender and grammatical gender
The German gender system is a purely grammatical system: the gender of a noun is not primarily determined by its natural gender. Although only persons and animals (and some plants) have a natural gender, all nouns have a grammatical gender. Moreover, the grammatical gender of a noun and the natural gender of the person or animal it refers to are not always identical: although the natural gender of Mädchen is feminine, its grammatical gender is neuter: das Mädchen.
In German morphology and syntax only the grammatical gender is relevant. The agreement between nouns and other words is always determined by the grammatical gender:
das Mädchen und seine Eltern
The natural gender of Mädchen is feminine, the grammatical gender is neuter. The article and the possessive pronoun agree with the grammatical gender of Mädchen:
neuter das, not feminine die
neuter seine, not feminine ihre.
What is the gender of a noun?Since the grammatical gender of a noun is usually not related to natural gender, it is very often impossible to predict the grammatical gender based on the meaning or the form of the noun. In some cases, however, the gender of a noun can be predicted. For more information, see:
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