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CATALAN: A COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar is a complete reference guide to modern Catalan grammar, presenting an accessible and systematic description of the modern language. The Grammar reflects the current reality of Catalan by acknowledging regional diversity and features Balearic and Valencian varieties alongside the language used in the Barcelona region. The combined specialist knowledge of the author team ensures a balanced coverage of modern Catalan. Features include: • comprehensive coverage of all parts of speech • a wealth of authentic examples illustrating language points • attention to areas of particular difficulty for those whose first language is English • full crossreferencing • detailed index Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar will remain the standard reference work for years to come. Max W.Wheeler is Reader in Linguistics at the University of Sussex. Alan Yates is ‘Illes Balears’ Professor of Catalan at the University of Sheffield. Nicolau Dols is Professor Titular d’Escola Universitària at the University of the Balearic Islands.
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CATALAN: A COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR Max W.Wheeler, Alan Yates and Nicolau Dols
London and New York
Page iv First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis eLibrary, 2003. © 1999 Max W.Wheeler, Alan Yates and Nicolau Dols All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wheeler, Max. Catalan: a comprehensive grammar/Max W.Wheeler, Alan Yates and Nicolau Dols. p. cm.—(Routledge grammars) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Catalan language—Grammar. I. Yates, Alan. II. Dols. Nicolau, 1967– . III. Title. IV. Series. PC3823.W44 1999 98–47194 449′.982421–dc21 CIP ISBN 0203028503 Master ebook ISBN
ISBN 0203300270 (OEB Format) ISBN 0415207770 (hbk) ISBN 0415103428 (Print Edition)
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We dedicate this volume to the memory of Joan Gili (1907–1998)
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CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
xvii
Map of Catalanspeaking areas and dialects
xviii
PART I: NOUN PHRASE CONSTITUENTS
ix
1 2
Gender of nouns
3
Plural of nouns and formation of derived nouns
30
3 4
Articles
43
Adjectives
71
5 6
Comparison
95
Demonstratives
106
7 8
Possessives
114
Miscellaneous adjectives and pronouns (quantifiers and indefinites)
121
9 10 11
Nominalizations via articles
143
Numerals
150
Personal pronouns (stressed)
160
12
Pronominal clitics (weak object pronouns)
167
PART II: ADVERBS, PREPOSITIONS, AND CONJUNCTIONS 13 14
Adverbs and adverbials
221
Prepositions
242
15
Conjunctions
268
PART III: VERBS 16 17
Morphology of the verb
283
Use of indicative (noncontinuous) verb forms
340
18 19
Progressive constructions and other verbal periphrases
363
The subjunctive
373
20 21
The infinitive
393
Participles
407
22 23
The gerund
416
Pronominal verbs
427
Page viii PART IV: SENTENCE TYPES: SIMPLE AND COMPLEX
24
Interjections and ideophones
449
25
Simple sentences and grammatical relations
458
26
Negation
474
27
Interrogation and exclamation
486
28
Imperative utterances
501
29
Passive and impersonal sentences
505
30
Copular sentences (ser, estar, etc.)
521
31
Relative clauses
532
32
Complement clauses
550
33
Adverbial clauses
557
34
Conditional sentences
575
PART V: INFORMATION STRUCTURE AND WORD ORDER 35
Cleft sentences
591
36
Word order
599
37
Spelling, accent rules, and punctuation
610
Further reading
621
Bibliography
623
Index
625
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PREFACE This book is designed to provide an uptodate, systematic description of the morphology and syntax of the modern standard Catalan language. In preparing it we have had in mind the needs of preuniversity and university students, teachers, translators and those with a private or professional interest in the language as it is currently used by Catalan speakers in educated conversation and in the normal range of written registers. We note with pleasure the appearance of Jenny Brumme’s Praktische Grammatik der katalanischen Sprache (Wilhelmsfeld: Egert, 1997); we coincide with the aims and scope of this work in offering a substantial grammar of Catalan, in a language other than Spanish or Catalan itself, designed expressly for nonnatives. Brumme’s work was published when the present volume was in the final stages of preparation, so we have been unable to make use of it in our own work. We have, of course, relied considerably on the extensive existing literature on Catalan grammar, though we have developed some topics which have not previously been covered in depth. We have also given particular emphasis to areas of usage which are likely to be difficult for users starting from English. One assumption with which we have worked is that those who use this book, whether for reference or for systematic study, will already have acquired some basic familiarity with Catalan, either through immediate contact and ‘total immersion’ or, more probably, through working with various methods (in the medium of English, Spanish or Catalan itself) for induction in the language. This Comprehensive Grammar is thus conceived as an extension or complement to a fairly wide repertoire of basic study materials, a sample of which is provided in the Further reading list. Another, related, assumption is that users of this book will be acquainted with basic traditional grammatical concepts and terminology; we aim to explain any more specialized concepts and terms as we go along. Such explanations can be located via the index. Catalan is a member of the Romance family of languages which are modern forms of the Latin language which spread from Rome to much of Europe in the wake of the Roman empire around the beginning of the common era. As its geographical position might suggest, Catalan shares several features with its nearest Romance neighbours: Italian, Sardinian, Occitan, Spanish, while being distinct in several respects from all of them. The map on page xviii shows where Catalan is spoken and identifies the main dialect divisions. The second section of this Preface briefly discusses ‘normative’ and ‘standard’ Catalan in relation to the position of the language in the twentieth century
Page x and insofar as these important concepts affect criteria and procedures followed in the body of this book. We do not attempt to supply here any history of Catalan as a member of the Romance family of languages, or any discussion of the mightily complex issues of Catalan as a stateless language in postRenaissance Europe, in contact/conflict with more powerful linguistic neighbours (primarily Spanish, but also French, and Italian). These sociolinguistic and politicolinguistic factors have been of great moment in shaping the historical evolution of Catalan and, especially in the twentieth century, in affecting the politics associated with community selfawareness centred in linguistic difference. The territories where Catalan is natively spoken are: (1) The Principality of Andorra. (2) In France: almost all of the département of PyrénéesOrientales. (3) In Spain: (i) Catalonia (under the autonomous government, the Generalitat, of Catalonia), except for the Gasconspeaking Val d’Aran. (ii) The eastern fringe of Aragon. (iii) Most of the Comunitat Valenciana, excepting some regions in the west and south which have been Aragonese/Spanishspeaking since at least the eighteenth century, (iv) El Carxe, a small area of the province of Murcia, settled in the nineteenth century. (v) The Balearic Islands: Majorca and Minorca (Balearic stricto sensu), Ibiza (Eivissa) and Formentera (strictly Illes Pitiüses). (4) In Italy: the port of Alghero in Sardinia. A conservative estimate of the number of native speakers of Catalan is about 6.5 million (based on the 1991 census in Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearics, with estimates for the remaining territories). Within Spain a further three million claim to understand Catalan. Partly as a result of the incorporation of Catalan locally into the education system, there are within Spain increasing numbers of secondlanguage speakers.
STATUS OF CATALAN The status, situation, and prospects of the Catalan language are significantly different in each of the territories enumerated above, though each of those in Spain shares, in some way, the consequences of Catalan’s having been for centuries an oppressed minority language. For a multiplicity of reasons, cultural decline and loss of prestige affected Catalan from the sixteenth century onwards. The defeat of the Catalans in the war of the Spanish Succession (1714) initiated a series of measures extending throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, imposing the use of Spanish in public life, for example,
Page xi in accounts, in preaching, in the theatre, in the criminal courts, in education, in legal documents, in the civil registers, on the telephone. In the twentieth century these measures were mostly repeated, and supplemented by the imposition of Spanish in the catechism, by prohibition of the teaching of Catalan, and by sanctions against persons refusing to use Spanish. The Second Republic (1931–39) to a large extent removed these restrictions, but Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War was followed in 1940 by a total ban on the public use of Catalan. This ban was subject to a series of relaxations from the 1950s onwards, allowing (subject to censorship applied generally in Spain) the publication of increasing numbers of Catalan books from the 1960s, though Catalan remained excluded from nearly all public institutions until Spain’s adoption of a democratic constitution in 1978. That constitution enjoins respect for and protection of Spain’s ‘other’ languages, and opened the way for statutes of autonomy in the various regions. In the early 1980s, Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearics obtained their respective autonomy statutes, involving coofficiality for Spanish and Catalan. All of these statutes promote ‘language normalization’, the goal of which is universal bilingualism without diglossia. In Catalonia the expressed aim of the Generalitat goes much further than this: to make the local language the normal medium of public life, with Spanish having a secondary role as an auxiliary language, or a home language for its native speakers. In Valencia and the Balearics, the de facto policy has been to promote effective knowledge of Catalan and to enhance its status, although complex sociopolitical factors, differentially in each area, continue to hinder progress towards full and normal integration of Catalan in public life. In Catalonia, Catalan is coofficial and its knowledge and use are actively promoted by the autonomous government and by local government. Teaching of Catalan is obligatory in all schools, and primary and secondary education through the medium of Catalan reaches in the 1990s about 60 per cent of the population. The provision includes, since 1993, some Catalan immersion programmes in Spanishspeaking suburbs. There are two Catalanlanguage television stations, with wide audiences, and numerous radio stations. Catalan is still clearly in a minority position in the periodical press, in advertising, in cinema/video, and in the administration of justice, but a gradual advance is noted here too. The January 1998 Language Normalization Act is designed to build upon progress achieved under the previous Act of 1983, especially as regards extending the use of Catalan in the commercial and judicial fields, where the predominance of Spanish has been obstinate. In the Aragon fringe, Catalan has no official status, though the Aragonese autonomy statute speaks of protection and support of minority languages. In the towns and villages in question there are many cultural associations promoting Catalan (not necessarily by that name), and in many cases the local administration supports Catalan teaching in schools. Radio and television
Page xii from Catalonia are accessible, of course. Language shift (except through emigration) is minimal. The language situation in the Community of Valencia is extremely complex, politically, culturally, and geographically. Catalan has been strongest in the countryside and among the urban working classes. The language policy of the Generalitat Valenciana, responding to popular pressure, has largely concentrated on education, and Catalan is available in around 80 per cent of state schools. A shortage of teachers has hindered advance here up to now. Teaching through Catalan is available in a minority of schools. A Valencian state television station broadcasts bilingually. Catalan is quite prominent in cultural life; it is present in administration and in commerce, and there is evidence of popular demand for, and expectation of, a greater use of Catalan. Though the Balearic Islands Council passed a linguistic normalization law in 1986, relatively little has been done to put it into effect. Spoken Catalan is predominant except in Palma and in Ibiza (Eivissa), where immigration is highest, and where there is recent evidence of some intergenerational language shift to Spanish. Catalan has some place in local broadcasting, TV and radio, and Catalan television stations from the mainland have a wide following. Since 1996 there has been a Palmabased Catalanlanguage daily newspaper, with a wide distribution, and outside Palma the local press is largely Catalan. In schools, Catalan as a subject is widely available, responding to pressure from parents and from local administrations (though in Ibiza one fifth of pupils does not receive the prescribed hours of Catalan teaching). In 1990–91 17 per cent of pupils had Catalan as their medium of education, in whole or in part; this trend is strongest in Minorca. In advertising and commerce Spanish predominates, but with Catalan increasing its role somewhat. In Valencia and in the Balearic Islands, there is in some sectors a preference for using the terms ‘valencià’ and ‘mallorquí’, respectively, to refer to the variants of the language used there. This feature (which we refer to again below in discussing normative and standard Catalan) is susceptible to political manipulation, and it strongly affects debate on the linguistic unity of the Catalanspeaking territories. In Andorra, Catalan has always been the sole official language, though until recently secondary education was provided by the French and Spanish states, in their standard, monolingual, model. Spanishspeaking immigrants account for almost 40 per cent of the population of about 50,000. Spanish and French are widely used in commerce, but Catalan predominates in other areas of public life. In 1993 Andorra adopted a new constitution, and the government has been pursuing an active ‘Andorranization’ policy, involving education through a medium of Catalan. The status and position of Catalan in North Catalonia is closely parallel to that of the other traditional minority languages in France. Language shift was all but universal after the Second World War, so that most native
Page xiii speakers are over fifty years old. Catalan has at best an occasional, decorative, role in public life. In primary schools, some 30 per cent study Catalan (as a foreign language), and some 15 per cent in secondary schools. In Alghero, in 1987, it was estimated that about 58 per cent of the population of 37,000 understood alguerès. However, intergenerational language shift to Italian is proceeding apace, despite the recent declaration of coofficiality for Catalan and Italian in the city. Stimulated in part by Catalan revival further west, a certain pro Catalan cultural movement can be observed, evident in local associations and local television and radio. As elsewhere in Italy, the local language has no official role in the education system.
DIALECTS Though there are significant dialect differences in Catalan, the dialects are to a very high degree mutually intelligible. They are conventionally divided into two groups, on the basis of differences in phonology as well as in some features of verb morphology; there are some interesting lexical differences, too. The eastern dialect group covers North Catalan (including rossellonès in French Catalonia), Central Catalan (in the eastern part of Catalonia), Balearic, and alguerès (in Alghero). The western group consists of North Western (NW) Catalan (western and southern Catalonia and eastern Aragon) and Valencian. The principal dialect divisions are shown in the map on page xviii.
NORMATIVE AND STANDARD CATALAN A unified literary Catalan koine had already become well established by the fifteenth century. With the subsequent cultural decline in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, awareness of the conventions of this koine, and of the linguistic and cultural unity of the Catalan territories it reflected, was gradually dissipated, so that, by 1800 or so, writers had in mind only a regionally limited audience for works in a local idiom. One of the goals of the nineteenthcentury Renaixença (‘Rebirth’) movement was the restoration or reconstruction of a Catalan standard language. The standardization process crystallized in the work of Pompeu Fabra (1868–1948), whose orthographic norms (1913), grammar (1918), and dictionary (1932) were immediately adopted by official institutions in Catalonia, and quickly became accepted elsewhere. The bases of Fabra’s standard Catalan were the medieval koine, current educated usage in Catalonia, particularly in Barcelona, the contemporary dialects, and the removal of ‘barbarisms’. Fabra’s intention was that the standard language should be open to development, and to further incorporation of non Barcelona usage, but the circumstances of the Spanish
Page xiv Civil War (1936–39) and the Franco period (1939–75) had the effect of turning Fabra’s works into an orthodoxy, deviation from which was regarded by Catalan nationalists as unpatriotic. It is only since the 1980s that the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and associated institutions have regained the authority to expand and modernize standard Catalan, introducing recommendations for terminology, for spoken usage in the mass media, and for regional parastandards. In fact, in addition to the Barcelonabased norm which is used throughout Catalonia and to some extent elsewhere, de facto standards for Valencian and Balearic had already grown up, largely through the practice of a few major publishers. These parastandards diverge from the Barcelona norm only in retaining some regional differences of vocabulary and morphology which were part of the literary tradition. The differences are comparable to those between British and American English; one may easily read a page of text before coming on a feature which marks it as of one regional standard variety rather than another. In recent years some writers and publishers in Catalonia have argued for, and practised, modifications of the standard language to reflect more popular usage, especially that of Barcelona, in vocabulary and syntax. The vehemence of the polemic surrounding these deviations is out of proportion to the rather modest scope of the innovations proposed. A potentially much more serious trend since the 1980s has been one associated with the claim that Valencian is not just a regional variety of Catalan but a separate language. This has led to the development by the Reial Academia de Cultura Valenciana of a different orthography, grammar, and vocabulary, reflecting more closely (but by no means entirely consistently) the popular speech of Valencia; this alternative standard has won some official backing—in the city government of Valencia and under the regime currently (1998) controlling the Generalitat Valenciana—but has generally been opposed by educational institutions, publishers, and most creative writers in Catalan.
TYPE OF LANGUAGE COVERED IN THE GRAMMAR Our approach to presenting a systematic description of modern Catalan is one which takes into account the issues discussed above. We endeavour to reflect the current reality of the language by acknowledging regional diversity. Both our descriptions and the examples supplied refer primarily to the established prescriptive norms, with their inclination towards the standard status and standardizing influence of the Central dialect, in particular. However, in areas of use where differences are marked (e.g. weak object pronouns, verbal morphology, demonstratives, etc.), we follow the practice of describing regional or dialect differences from the General variety (as we label it in this context), with examples correspondingly supplied and explained. Elsewhere,
Page xv in discussing general normative features, we regularly include without comment examples which contain recognized dialect features (e.g. Valencian et porte esta carta for Centralbased norm et porto aquesta carta ‘I am bringing you this letter’; Balearic t’ho pos aquí for t’ho poso aquí ‘I’m putting it here (for you)’). Proportionally, though, the example material supplied reflects the prevalence of the Central norm, for the reasons explained above. Where we make mention of ‘the Dictionary’, reference is principally to the Diccionari de la llengua catalana, published in 1995 under the aegis and with the authority of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. The Institut, through its Philological Section, is the acknowledged and legally recognized ultimate authority in matters concerning the formal lexical and grammatical rules of Catalan, throughout the Catalanspeaking area. The 1995 Diccionari incorporates the contents and various revisions of the Diccionari general de la llengua catalana which first appeared in 1932 under the direction of Pompeu Fabra (see p. xiii). Until 1995 the Diccionari general was complemented by the Diccionari de la llengua catalana (1982), published by Enciclopèdia Catalana, which retains its usefulness for coverage of recent and specialized terminology. A corpus might have been established to provide authorized and published illustration of each and every point discussed. Selected quotations from written sources have been used, but we have rejected using a corpus base as our main method. Several practical and theoretical reasons have determined this decision. In the first place we wished to break with the reference grammar convention of prioritizing literary usage. Second, establishing a corpus of authorities would have meant imposing certain criteria of selectivity regarding normative status which, in the context of modern Catalan publishing, is subject to outside constraints, house styles, subjective preferences and the vagaries of correction. Third, genuine quotations in many cases bring the disadvantage of details which are irrelevant to the point under discussion, making it harder to see the wood for the trees. Our examples, some of which have been adapted from complementary linguistic sources, are intended to be both realistic and practical. This procedure is consistent with our main team approach to the preparation of this volume, combining our individual competences, namely those of a theoretical linguist with a particular interest in the structures of Catalan, a specialist in teaching Catalan grammar to advanced students of languages, and a Catalan speaker (incidentally of Majorcan origin) who supplies an internal perspective based on both native competence and professional expertise. In addition to remarking on dialect differences within the standard language, we give considerable attention to levels of formality, both in speech and writing. That is, we draw attention to the fact that not everything that is accepted as standard is equally appropriate in all contexts; furthermore, many features that are categorized as nonstandard are characteristic at least of the spontaneous spoken usage of many educated speakers.
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CONVENTIONS AND PRESENTATION An asterisk (*hem comprar pa, *vull de veure) indicates an ungrammatical form, that would be instinctively rejected by a native speaker. A question mark before an example (?Era envejada per mi, ?Li ho direm al teu germà) indicates a form that would not be accepted as natural or genuine by all speakers. Widespread colloquial nonstandard variants are systematically referred to as such. Where the English translation of an example departs markedly from the wording or structure of the Catalan original, we supply in parentheses, thus (lit….), a more literal version to accompany the communicative equivalent of the original. The English translations that we give, whether of words or whole sentences, are not intended to cover the whole range of possible meanings (or to substitute for a dictionary). They are designed to identify the items in question, or to illustrate the point at issue, drawing attention to similarities and differences between Catalan and English. Among other things, a Catalan third person singular verb such as pren might well correspond to ‘she takes’, ‘he takes’, ‘it takes’, ‘you take’, ‘she is taking’, ‘he is taking’, ‘it is taking’, ‘you are taking’, and so on. We select just one of the possibilities without comment. Alternatives have been indicated (usually by a diagonal stroke/: thus, vam/vàrem cridar ‘we shouted’, camioneta ‘van’/‘light truck’) where the difference is noteworthy or significant, but for the sake of clarity we have not attempted to be comprehensive in showing all alternatives wherever they might be possible. Max W.Wheeler (Falmer) Alan Yates (Sheffield) Nicolau Dols (Palma) April 1999
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are grateful to all the Catalanspeakers, too numerous to mention individually here, who have helped us, knowingly or not, to exemplify or clarify points of grammar and usage. Special thanks are due, though, to Joaquim Martí i Mainar for his good advice; to Pere Santandreu Brunet, Puri Gómez i Casademont and Josep A.Grimalt Gomila for reading and sensitively commenting on drafts of some chapters; and to Louise Johnson for intellectual and technical support. The final version has benefited from the detailed observations of an anonymous reader, to whom we also express our gratitude. One particular axis of our collaboration has benefited from support for joint research given by the Universitat de les Illes Balears and the University of Sheffield.
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Catalanspeaking areas and dialects
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PART I: NOUN PHRASE CONSTITUENTS
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1 GENDER OF NOUNS Catalan displays the phenomenon of grammatical gender agreement found in many European languages (and elsewhere). Every noun is either of masculine or of feminine gender; adjectives which modify the noun, as well as pronouns which crossrefer to it, are required to take the same, ‘agreeing’, gender. For example: Aquell armari vell era ple, i el vam haver de that (m.) cupboard (m.) old (m.) was full (m.), and it (m.) wehad to buidar. empty That old cupboard was full, and we had to empty it. Aquella caixa vella era plena, i la vam haver de buidar. that (f.) box (f.) old (f.) was full (f.), and it (f.) wehad to empty That old box was full, and we had to empty it. As is the case in most languages, the masculine gender is semantically ‘unmarked’, in that it is also used when referring to groups of mixed biological gender or to persons of unknown or unspecified gender: els italians (m.) Italian males or Italians in general els professors (m.) male teachers or teachers of either sex els pares (m.) fathers or parents els fills (m.) sons or sons and daughters (male and female) or children (sex unspecified or unknown) Si algú arriba d’hora, feulo (m.) esperar. If anyone arrives early, have them wait. female teachers but les professores (f.)
In addition to masculine and feminine gender, Catalan is unusual among Romance languages in having a special neuter agreement pronoun ho, used when no noun has been mentioned or is in mind. Its use is explained in section 12.5.
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1.1 GENDER OF NOUNS REFERRING TO HUMANS AND FAMILIAR ANIMALS As a very general rule nouns referring to female humans and female familiar/ domestic animals are of feminine gender (e.g. tia ‘aunt’, xinesa ‘Chinese girl/ woman’, gallina ‘hen’), and those referring to male humans and male familiar/domestic animals are of masculine gender (e.g. oncle ‘uncle’, xilè ‘Chilean boy/man’, gall ‘cock’) which is, of course, the source of the names masculine and feminine for the two agreement classes. There are a few exceptions, to be mentioned below (1.1.6). Generally we find pairs of nouns, one of masculine and one of feminine gender, for the corresponding male and female referents; these pairs are morphologically related in a number of possible ways. In the majority of cases, human males and females and males and females of familiar/domestic animals are denoted by distinct word forms. In the case of words denoting professions that were traditionally exercised only by men, the morphologically related feminine form is used to denote ‘wife of…’ such as alcaldessa ‘mayoress’; currently such forms are used mostly of women who exercise the profession in their own right. With professions that are even now exclusively male (e.g. military) the former convention may survive.
1.1.1 DERIVATION OF FEMININES WITH a The commonest pattern is that in which a feminine noun is derived from the corresponding masculine one by the addition of the feminine gender suffix a (replacing any unstressed final e or o of the masculine). Thus: fotògraf (m.) noi (m.) company (m.) fill (m.) pediatre (m.) monjo (m.) etc.
fotògrafa (f.) noia (f.) companya (f.) filla (f.) pediatra (f.) monja (f.)
photographer boy/girl companion son/daughter paediatrician monk/nun
In many cases there are consequential modifications to the spelling or pronunciation (or both). (i) A different written accent may be required (according to the general accentuation rules—see 37.5; these modifications apply to all parallel cases): avi (m.) pagès (m.) Lluís (m.) etc.
àvia (f.) pagesa (f.) Lluïsa (f.)
grandfather/grandmother farmer (Louis, Louisa—given name)
Page 5 (ii) Those ending in a stressed vowel add na in the feminine: germà (m.) beduí (m.) etc.
brother/sister Bedouin
germana (f.) beduïna (f.)
Also, irregularly, rei (m.) ‘king’ reina (f.) ‘queen’, orfe (m.) òrfena (f.) ‘orphan’. (iii) Those ending in òleg have òloga in the feminine: cardiòleg (m.) sociòleg (m.) etc.
cardiologist sociologist
cardiòloga (f.) sociòloga (f.)
(iv) A few of the nouns ending in s double the s in the feminine: gos (m.) ós (m.)
dog/bitch bear
gossa (f.) óssa (f.)
Similarly bordegàs/bordegassa ‘lad/lass’, capatàs/capatassa ‘foreman’, ‘overseer’, possés/possessa ‘someone possessed by the devil’, profés/ professa ‘one who has taken vows’, rus/russa ‘Russian’, suís/suïssa ‘Swiss’, talòs/talossa ‘dolt’. (v) A few of those ending in l have l∙la in the feminine: gal (m.) pupil (m.)
Gaul ward
gal∙la (f.) pupil∙la (f.)
And likewise with the given names Marcel, Camil, Ciril, feminines Marcel∙la, Camil∙la, Ciril∙la. (vi) Some masculine nouns which end in a voiceless consonant preceded by a vowel replace the consonant with the corresponding voiced one (c ga, p ba, t da): amic (m.) llop (m.)
amiga (f.) lloba (f.)
friend wolf
nebot (m.) etc.
neboda (f.)
nephew/niece
Likewise borrec/borrega ‘yearling lamb’, cec/cega ‘blind person’ dormilec/dormilega ‘sleepyhead’, enemic/enemiga ‘enemy’, gallec/gallega ‘Galician’, grec/grega ‘Greek’, llec/llega ‘lay person’, manyac/manyaga ‘sweetheart’ (addressed to a small child), noruec/noruega ‘Norwegian’. The great majority of nouns ending in t (many of which are nominalized adjectives) thus have corresponding feminines in da. Serf/serva ‘serf’ is the sole example showing f alternating with va. (vii) Most nouns ending in semiconsonant u have feminines in va; such as:
Page 6 detectiu (m.) esclau (m.) eslau (m.)
detectiva (f.) esclava (f.) eslava (f.)
detective slave Slav
jueu (m.) etc.
jueva (f.)
Jew
Hereu (m.) ‘heir’ has feminine hereua or hereva; romeu (m.) ‘pilgrim’ has romeua or romeva. Note given names Andreu/Andreua, Pompeu/Pompeia, Pau/Paula. To reu (m.) ‘accused person’, ‘culprit’ corresponds rea (f.); likewise arameu/aramea ‘Aramaean’, ateu/atea ‘atheist’, caldeu/caldea ‘Chaldean’, fariseu/farisea ‘Pharisee’, filisteu/filistea ‘Philistine’, galileu/ galilea ‘Galilean’, hebreu/hebrea ‘Hebrew’, indoeuropeu/indoeuropea ‘IndoEuropean’, maniqueu/maniquea ‘Manichean’, pigmeu/pigmea ‘Pigmy’.
1.1.2 FEMININES DERIVED WITH OTHER SUFFIXES In some cases the feminine form has another suffix (before which may be found the same types of change affecting final consonants or vowels as mentioned above). The commonest such suffix is essa: abat (m.) alcalde (m.) baró (m.) comte (m.) déu (m.) diable (m.) diaca (m) druida (m.) duc (m.) hoste (m.) jutge (m.) metge (m.) ogre (m.) poeta (m.) profeta (m.) tigre (m.) etc.
abadessa (f.) alcaldessa (f.) baronessa (f.) comtessa (f.) deessa or dea (f.) diablessa (f.) diaconessa (f.) druïdessa (f.) duquessa (f.) hostessa (f.) jutgessa (f.) metgessa (f.) ogressa (f.) poetessa (f.) profetessa (f.) tigressa (f.)
abbot/abbess mayor/female mayor/mayoress baron/baroness count/countess god/goddess devil deacon/deaconess druid duke/duchess lodger, host/hostess judge doctor, physician ogre/ogress poet prophet/prophetess tiger/tigress
To refer to a female poet or prophet, poeta (f.) and profeta (f.) are now preferred. A few nouns take ina: gall gallina
cock hen
heroi heroïna
hero heroine
A few nouns in tor or dor replace these with triu or driu respectively:
tsar tsarina
czar czarina
Page 7 actor actriu institutor institutriu
actor actress tutor governess
emperador emperadriu ambaixador ambaixadriu (now more usually ambaixadora)
emperor empress ambassador ambassadress
1.1.3 MASCULINES DERIVED FROM FEMININE In the following instances a masculine noun is derived from a feminine one via the suffix ot: abella (f.) fura (f.) guatlla (f.) guilla (f.) merla (f.) perdiu (f.) bruixa (f.) dida (f.)
bee/drone ferret quail vixen/fox blackbird partridge witch/wizard wet nurse/wet nurse’s husband
abellot (m.) furot (m.) guatllot (m.) guillot (m.) merlot (m.) perdigot (m.) bruixot (m.) didot (m.)
1.1.4 IRREGULAR OR SUPPLETIVE GENDER PAIRS Some gender pairs are expressed with unrelated, or irregularly related, nouns: amo (m.) gendre (m.) hereu (m.) home (m.) marit (m.) oncle (m.) príncep (m.) ase (m.) boc/cabró/cabrot (m.) cavall (m.) gall dindi or indiot (m.) marrà (m.) porc (m.) toro or brau (m.) bou (m.)
mestressa (f.) jove or nora (f.) pubilla (f.) dona (f.) muller (f.) tia (f.) princesa (f.) somera (f.) cabra (f.) egua/euga (f.) polla díndia (f.) ovella (f.) truja (f.) vaca (f.)
master/mistress soninlaw/daughterinlaw heir/heiress of family fortune man/husband/woman/wife husband/wife uncle/aunt prince/princess stallion donkey/jenny (female donkey) billy goat/nanny goat stallion/mare turkey ram/ewe pig/hog/sow bull/cow ox
1.1.5 NOUNS OF COMMON GENDER There is a considerable number of nouns of common gender referring to humans. The same form is used with both masculine and feminine articles, for
Page 8 example, una asteca ‘a female Aztec’, un asteca ‘a male Aztec’/‘an Aztec (sex unspecified)’. There is a substantial number of common gender nouns ending in a; the following are a representative sample: asteca (m./f.) belga (m./f.) carca (m./f.) col∙lega (m./f.) demòcrata (m./f.) dormilega (m./f.) Note dormilec (m.) is also found electricista (m./f.)
Aztec Belgian reactionary colleague democrat sleepyhead electrician
extra (m./f.) ganàpia (m./f.) gimnasta (m./f.) hipòcrita (m./f.) indígena (m./f.) judoka (m./f.) pastifa (m./f.) terapeuta (m./f.)
(film) extra childish person gymnast hypocrite native practitioner of judo botcher therapist
Metaphorical/metonymic transfers Certain nouns ending in a, regularly feminine and denoting inanimates in their literal sense, are also applied metaphorically or metonymically to humans; many of these are pejorative. Dictionaries record some as masculine only (in their transferred sense); others as masculine or feminine. These assignments are recorded below. There is little doubt that all of them can in fact be feminine if required. barra (m.) canalla (m.) consueta (m./f.) cràpula (m.) estafa (m./f.) fanfàrria (m./f.) fava (m./f.) guàrdia (m./f.) mala pinta (m./f.) mandra (m./f.) manta (m./f.) marieta (m.) maula (m./f.) ordenança (m.) paleta (m./f.) peça (m./f.) pocasolta (m./f.) pocavergonya (m./f.) policia (m./f.) trafica (m./f.) etc.
shameless person