Summary
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Feminine -e
Masculine -Ø
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3 DEROGATIONS to the RULE
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1st derogation: Irregular Suffixation
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2nd derogation: Learned Compounds
Masculine –e
All irregular
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3rd derogation: Masculine Gender Precedence
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EXCEPTIONS
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Some statistics
Regular nouns represent 70% of the class of nouns. Within these 70%, the split between masculine and feminine nouns is relatively equal.
Distribution of Derogative Nouns (from the 3 derogation cases)
Derogative nouns represent 25% of all nouns. Within these 25%, the distribution gives a slight advantage to masculine nouns.
Feminine derogative nouns represent 29% of all feminine nouns when masculine derogatives represent 25% of all masculine nouns.
The feminine Derogative nouns are very predictable and are concentrated in the single category of irregular derivatives (suff.-ion, aison,-ité and-eur). This category alone accounts for almost all female predictable irregularities.
The masculine derogative nouns divide themselves into
several categories: irregular derivatives, learned compounds, nouns families, English
loanwords ... Making them more difficult to grasp.
Exceptions
Masculine exceptions are by far the most numerous compare to feminine ones. They
represent 5% of all masculine nouns.
Conclusion
We find that feminine nouns are by far the most easily predictable: They have a clear regular marker (final -e), know only one case of derogation to the basic rule (irregular suffixation) and admit little exceptions.
The masculine nouns are much more complex: regular nouns don’t have a distinctive gender marker, they divide into multiple derogation categories (learned composition, irregular suffixation, conversion ...) and admit a significant number of exceptions.
Copyright © Ginette Guillard-Chamart 2009. All rights reserved.