Spanish nouns

The Spanish language has nouns that express concrete objects, groups and classes of objects, qualities, feelings and other abstractions. All nouns have a conventional grammatical gender. Countable nouns inflect for number (singular and plural). However, the division between uncountable and countable nouns is more ambiguous than in English.

Gender

All Spanish nouns have one of two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine (mostly conventional, that is, arbitrarily assigned). Most adjectives and pronouns, and all articles and participles, indicate the gender of the noun they reference or modify.

In a sentence like "Large tables are nicer", the Spanish equivalent, "Las mesas grandes son más bonitas", must use words according to the gender of the noun. The noun, "mesa" ("table"), is feminine in Spanish. Therefore, the article must be feminine too, and so "la" instead of "el", is required. However, "mesas" is plural here, so we need "las" rather than "la". The two adjectives, whether next to the noun or after the verb, have to "agree" with the noun as well. "Grande" is a word which is invariable for gender, so it just takes a plural marker: "grandes". "Bonito" is a word that can agree for both gender and number, so we say "bonitas" to go with "mesas". A student of Spanish must keep in mind all these features when making sentences.

Noun gender

In general, most nouns that end in "-a", "-ción" / "-sión" and "-ad" are feminine; the rest of the nouns, which usually end in "-o" or a consonant, are masculine.

Nouns can be grouped in the following categories:
*Applied to persons and most domesticated animals:
**Declinable nouns. The feminine form adds "a" or replaces the final vowel by "a", e.g. "el profesor/la profesora, el presidente/la presidenta, el perro/la perra". Often, nouns that refer to positions that are traditionally held by men are declinable.
**Invariant nouns (in Spanish, "sustantivos de género común"). The feminine form and the masculine form are identical: "el artista/la artista, el testigo/la testigo, el estudiante/la estudiante".
**Nouns with a unique grammatical gender. The noun has a fixed gender, regardless of the sex of the person it describes: "el personaje, la visita".

* Applied to wild and some domesticated animals:
** Nouns where the two sexes of animals have different words to describe them: "el toro/la vaca, el caballo/la yegua".
** Epicene nouns. The gender of the noun is fixed and sex is indicated by "macho" (male) or "hembra" (female). Examples: "la jirafa macho", "la jirafa hembra", "el rinoceronte macho", "el rinoceronte hembra".

* Applied to things:
** Masculine, e.g. "el pan".
** Feminine, e.g. "la leche".
** Vacillant nouns (called "sustantivos ambiguos" in Spanish) accept either gender, e.g. "linde" ("boundary") and "testuz" ("animal's forehead"). "Internet" causes speakers to hesitate between making it masculine like other loanwords from English, or making it feminine to agree with "red", "net". Strangely, "azúcar"(sugar) can be masculine with "el", feminine with "el" (bizarrely) or feminine with "la". Spanish is predominantly a masculine-based language. As such, the determiner seems to go in the masculine in standard use: "el, este, ese, tanto," especially when referring to cases where gender is not specified. Any adjectives agreeing with it are usually masculine in Spain and feminine in Latin America: "el azúcar moreno o blanco" / "el azúcar negra o rubia". "Mar" ("sea") is normally masculine, but in poetry and sailors' speech it is feminine. "Arte" is masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural, though it can be feminine in the singular when it means "art-form" and masculine in the plural in the expression "los artes de pesca", "fishing gear".
** There is a pattern with words with an initial stressed /a/ sound, such as "agua" ("water"), that makes them seem ambiguous in gender, but they are not. Such words take the masculine article, both definite ("el") and indefinite ("un"), in the singular form; they also take the singular modifiers "algún" (instead of "alguna") and "ningún" (instead of "ninguna") when those modifiers precede the nouns. Similar words include "el alma" / "un alma" ("soul"), "el ala" / "un ala" ("wing"), "el águila" / "un águila" ("eagle"), and "el hacha" / "un hacha" ("ax"). But still they are feminine and, as such, they take feminine modifiers (except those cases previously mentioned) in both singular and plural forms, and they also take feminine articles in the plural form as in "las aguas frías".
** Sometimes, two homonyms will differ in gender, e.g. "el capital" ("funds") and "la capital" ("capital city"); "el cura" ("the priest") and "la cura" ("the cure").

Determining gender from endings

Nouns ending in "-o" are masculine, with the only notable exception of the word "mano" ("hand"); "-a" is typically feminine, with notable exceptions; other vowels and consonants are more often than not masculine, but many are feminine, particularly those referring to women ("la madre") or ending in "-ción", "-dad", "-ez" ("la nación, la soledad, la vejez").

A small set of words of Greek origin and ending in "-ma" are masculine: "problema" "problem", "lema" "lemma, motto", "tema" "theme, topic", "sistema" "system", "telegrama" "telegram", etc.

Words ending in "-ista" referring to a person can generally be either gender: "el artista, la artista", "the artist, the female artist". The same is true of words ending in "-ante" or "-ente", though sometimes separate female forms ending in "-a" are used.

Words taken from foreign languages may:
*Take the gender they have in that language, with neuter taken to be the same as masculine (so English nouns are made masculine)
*Take the gender it seems to be (e.g. "la Coca-Cola" because it ends in "-a")
*Take the gender of the closest-related Spanish word (e.g. "la Guinness" because of "la cerveza")

Gender of proper nouns (names)

Names of people

People's names agree with the sex of the person, even if they appear to be the opposite:
*"Chema es guapo"
*"Amparo es guapa"

Names of settlements

Usage for places varies. You can choose between making them:
*Feminine if they end in "-a", otherwise masculine:
**"la Barcelona de Gaudí"
**"el Londres de Dickens"
*Agree with the underlying noun "el pueblo" or "la ciudad"
**"Nueva York" (city)
**"la antigua Cartago" (city)
**"Fraga es pequeño" (village/small town)
*Always masculine: (this usage may seem wrong to some speakers)
**"Barcelona no es pequeño"
**"Londres no es pequeño"

With examples like New York, the "Nueva" is a fixed part of the name and so cannot be made masculine, but New Mexico is translated as "Nuevo México" and considered masculine, since México is a masculine noun.

Rivers

Rivers are masculine because of the underlying masculine noun "río". The ancient Roman belief that rivers ("amnes") were male gods may also influence this. Locally, a few rivers may be feminine, but the masculine is always safe and correct.
*"el [río de la] Plata" = "The River Plate" (literally "the River of Silver")
*"el [río] Támesis" = "The River Thames"
*"el [río] Tajo" = "The River Tagus"
*"el [río] Colorado" = "The Colorado River" (literally "the Red River")
*"el [río] Cinca / la Cinca" = "The River Cinca" (in the Aragonese Pyrenees)

Vestiges of a neutral gender

While Spanish is generally regarded to have two genders, its ancestor, Latin, had three. The transition from three genders to two is mostly complete; however, vestiges of a neuter gender can still be seen. This was noted by Andrés Bello in his work on the grammar of Latin American Spanish. [http://www.jabega.net/bello/bajo15.html]

Most notably, this is seen in pronouns like "esto", "eso", "aquello", and "ello", which are the neuter forms of "este", "ese", "aquel", and "él", respectively. These words correspond with English "this", "that", "him" or "it". Additionally the word "lo", while usually masculine, can be considered neuter in some circumstances. It can also be used in the place of "el" to be a neutral form of the article "the", as in "lo mismo", "the same". Bello also notes that words such as "nada", "poco", "algo", and "mucho" can be used as neuters in some contexts.

Neuter forms such as "esto" were preserved because unlike most nouns in Latin, the difference between masculine and neuter for these pronouns did not depend on a final consonant. For example, most second declension Latin neuter singulars in the nominative case ended in "-um", the non-neuter counterpart often ending in "-us". When the final consonants in these endings are dropped, the result is "-u" for both; this became "-o" in Spanish. However, a word like Latin "iste" had the neuter "istud"; the former became "este" and the latter became "esto" in Spanish.

Another sign that Spanish once had a grammatical neuter exists in words that derive from neuter plurals. In Latin, a neuter plural ended in "-a", and so these words today in Spanish get interpreted as singular feminine, and take singular verb forms; however, they do express some notion of a plural. For example, "la física" corresponds to English "physics", a plural.

Number

There are two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. The singular form is the one found in dictionaries (base form). The plural is indicated in most words by adding "-s" (if the base form ends in a vowel) or "-es" otherwise. Note that final "y" in words like "rey", though phonetically a vowel, counts as a consonant ("rey" → "reyes").

The masculine gender is used for plural forms of mixed sexes (it is inclusive): "los niños", grammatically masculine, may mean "the children" or "the boys". The feminine gender is exclusive in the plural: "las niñas" = "the little girls". When male sex needs to be shown exclusively in the plural, phrases such as "los niños varones" are used. Feminists (and their satirists) try to reverse the pattern with phrases such as "las personas humanas jóvenes varones" = "the young male human people".

Some words are formally always grammatically plural: "pantalones" "trousers", "tijeras" "scissors". In many dialects, however, these words are taken to be semantic plurals, and their singular forms are used instead: "pantalón", "tijera".

In expressions with an indefinite determiner, singular forms are used (unlike English, where "some" and "any" tend to modify plural nouns).

*"Si hay algún árbol, lo derribaremos" = "If there is any tree, we will tear it down"
*"Por cualquier medio" = "By any means"

Forms of "ninguno" ("no") always take singular noun phrases, even where plurality might be intended:
*"Ningún obstáculo se interpone" = "No obstacle is in our way", "There are no obstacles in our way"
*"No vi a ninguna mujer" = "I saw no women", "I didn't see any women"

The determiner "cualquiera" has a plural form ("cualesquiera"), but it is never used outside formal or technical contexts.

Diminutives, augmentatives and suffixes

Spanish nouns can be made by adding a very productive set of suffixes to existing nouns and adjectives. This usually just slightly modifies the meaning, but sometimes it creates something new entirely.

The most common subset of such suffixes are the diminutives, which convey the idea of smallness, delicateness, etc. (also for endearing terms). The most common diminutive in Spanish is "-it-". It is added to the root of the noun, and in actual usage it takes the proper agreement for gender and number.

*"planta" → "plantita" / "plantota " ("plant" → "little plant" / "big plant")
*"vaso" → "vasito" / "vasote" ("glass" → "little glass" / "big glass")
*"niño" → "niñito" / "niñote" ("small boy" → "little tiny boy" / "Big (little tiny) boy")

In other cases, this ending can be pejorative or belittling.
*"señor" → "señorito" ("Sir/Mister" → "little sir/mister" (mockingly) compare ("señora" → "señorita" ("Madame/Mrs." → "Miss/Ms."))

When the word does not end in a vowel, "-it-" becomes "-cit-" for diminutives if the word ends in something other than an unstressed "-o" or "-a". Agreement marks are added to it according to the gender and number:

*"botón" → "botoncito" / "botonote"
*"Carmen" → "Carmencita"
*"mamá" → "mamacita"
*"madre" → "madrecita"

This is slightly modified when the base word ends in "z". Because "z" and soft "c" are the same sound in Spanish, an epenthetic "e" is inserted (notice the orthographic change): "pez" → "pececito" / "pecezote". There is nothing fixed when the base ends in other consonants: "azúcar" → "azuquítar" or "azuquita" / "azucota".

When words end in "-s" or "-te", there are varied approaches.

Idiomatic diminutives

The choice of diminutive is often a mark of regional dialects and influence of coexistent Romance languages. Educated speakers who would use "-ito" / "-ita" or no diminutive at all in more formal speech may use local forms when they want a friendlier or more colourful way of expressing themselves, sometimes borrowing another region's diminutive.

So, instead of the standard "-ito", you could find:
*"-illo" / "-illa" especially in Andalusia ("’quillo" for "chico" is a typical Cádiz interjection).
*"-ico" / "-ica" in Aragon, Navarra, Murcia, eastern Andalusia, parts of the Valencian Community, ...
** a variant of this diminutive is used in many latinamerican countries, but only for nouns ending in "-to", "-ta" or "-te", while in other nouns "-ito" / "-ita" is used.
*"-ín" / "-ina" or "-ino" / "-ina" in the Spanish spoken in Asturias, as in Asturian.
*"-iño" / "-iña" in the Spanish spoken in Galicia, as in Galician.
*"-uco" / "-uca" in Cantabria.
*"-eto" / "-eta" in Aragon.
*"-ete" / "-eta", possibly from Catalan, in much of eastern Spain.
*"-uelo" / "-uela".

In fossilised forms, these can be found in standard words, such as "puerta" → "portillo", "burro" → "borrico", "Venecia" → "Venezuela", "paño" → "pañuelo", "calle" → "calleja" → "callejuela" etc.

Sometimes different suffixes are used for variety when more than one is used at once:
*"chico" → "chiquito" → "chiquitillo" etc.There is a well-known tango called "De chiquilin te miraba de afuera..."

Other suffixes

As well as being an Andalusian (especially Seville) alternative to "-ito", the suffix "-illo" is also a special diminutive with a nuance of "a funny sort of...". It is also used to create new nouns:
*"palo" "stick" → "palillo" "toothpick"
*"bolso" "handbag" → "bolsillo" "pocket"
*"guerra" "war" → "guerrilla" "hit-and-run warfare"

An example of the same phenomenon, but using an augmentative, is "-ón":
*"soltero" "bachelor" → "solterón" "confirmed bachelor"
*"soltera" "single woman" → "solterona" "spinster"
*"puerta" "door" → "portón" "gate" / "large door"

Another suffix that can either denote "a blow with" or be an augmentative is "-azo":
*"puerta" ("door") → "portazo" ("slam of a door")
*"mano" ("hand") → "manotazo" ("a hit with the hand")
*"cacerola" ("saucepan") → "cacerolazo" (both "a blow with a saucepan" or "a big saucepan", also a form of protest)
*"Caracas" (Caracas, capital of Venezuela) → "Caracazo" (the "Caracazo", the violent protests of 27 February 1989)
*"derecha" ("right hand") → "derechazo" (either a "right-hander" when slapping someone, or a "right-handed pass with the cape" in bullfighting)
*"flecha" ("arrow") → "flechazo" ("arrow shot" / "arrow wound", or figuratively "love at first sight")

External links

* [http://www.webworkbooks.com/spanish/grammar/nouns.php WebWorkbooks: Spanish Nouns]