Editing Grammatical gender (section)

=== Gender contrasts ===
{{See also|List of languages by type of grammatical genders}}
Common systems of gender contrast include:<ref>{{Cite web |title=What Are the 4 Genders? 7 Other Types, Gender Identity & 7 Sexuality Types |url= https://www.medicinenet.com/what_are_the_4_genders/article.htm |access-date=26 March 2024 |work=MedicineNet |language=en}}</ref>
* masculine–feminine gender contrast
* masculine–feminine–neuter gender contrast
* animate–inanimate gender contrast
* common–neuter gender contrast

==== Masculine–feminine contrast ====
Nouns that denote specifically male persons (or animals) are normally of masculine gender; those that denote specifically female persons (or animals) are normally of feminine gender; and nouns that denote something that does not have any sex, or do not specify the sex of their referent, have come to belong to one or other of the genders, in a way that may appear arbitrary.{{sfn|Franceschina|2005|p=72}}{{sfn|Franceschina|2005|p=78}} Examples of languages with such a system include most of the modern [[Romance languages]], the [[Baltic languages]], the [[Celtic languages]], some [[Indo-Aryan languages]] (e.g., [[Hindustani language|Hindustani]]), and the [[Afroasiatic languages]].

==== Masculine–feminine–neuter{{anchor|Masculine–feminine–neuter}} contrast ====
This is similar to systems with a masculine–feminine contrast, except that there is a third available gender, so nouns with sexless or unspecified-sex referents may be either masculine, feminine, or neuter. There are also certain exceptional nouns whose gender does not follow the denoted sex, such as the German {{lang|de|Mädchen}}, meaning "girl", which is neuter. This is because it is actually a diminutive of "Magd" and all diminutive forms with the suffix {{lang|de|-chen}} are neuter. Examples of languages with such a system include later forms of [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] {{crossreference|(see [[#Indo-European|below]])|printworthy=y}}, [[Sanskrit]], some [[Germanic languages]], most [[Slavic languages]], a few [[Romance languages]] ([[Romanian language|Romanian]], [[Asturian language|Asturian]] and [[Neapolitan language|Neapolitan]]), [[Marathi language|Marathi]], [[Latin]], and [[Modern Greek grammar|Greek]].

==== Animate–inanimate contrast ====
Here nouns that denote [[animate gender|animate]] things (humans and animals) generally belong to one gender, and those that denote inanimate things to another (although there may be some deviation from that principle). Examples include earlier forms of Proto-Indo-European and the earliest family known to have split off from it, the extinct [[Anatolian languages]] {{crossreference|(see [[#Indo-European|below]])|printworthy=y}}. Modern examples include [[Algonquian languages]] such as [[Ojibwe language|Ojibwe]].{{sfn|Corbett|1991|pp=20–21}}
* In Northern [[Kurdish language]] ([[Kurmanji]]), the same word can have two genders according to the context. For example, if the word {{lang|ku|dar}} (meaning 'wood' or 'tree') is feminine, it means that it is a living tree (e.g., {{lang|ku|dara sêvê}} means 'apple tree'), but if it is masculine, it means that it is dead, no longer living (e.g., {{lang|ku|darê sêvê}} means 'apple wood'). So if one wants to refer to a certain table that is made of wood from an apple tree, one cannot use the word {{lang|ku|dar}} with a feminine gender, and if one wants to refer to an apple tree in a garden, one cannot use {{lang|ku|dar}} with a masculine gender.

==== Common–neuter contrast ====
Here a masculine–feminine–neuter system previously existed, but the distinction between masculine and feminine genders has been lost in nouns (they have merged into what is called ''common gender''), though not in pronouns that can operate under natural gender. Thus nouns denoting people are usually of common gender, whereas other nouns may be of either gender. Examples include [[Danish language|Danish]] and [[Swedish language|Swedish]]{{crossreference|&nbsp;(see [[Gender in Danish and Swedish]])}}, and to some extent Dutch{{crossreference|&nbsp;(see [[Gender in Dutch grammar]])}}.

The dialect of the old Norwegian capital [[Bergen]] also uses common gender and neuter exclusively. The common gender in Bergen and in Danish is inflected with the same articles and suffixes as the masculine gender in [[Norwegian Bokmål]]. This makes some obviously feminine noun phrases like "a cute girl", "the well milking cow" or "the pregnant mares" sound strange to most Norwegian ears when spoken by Danes and people from Bergen since they are inflected in a way that sounds like the masculine declensions in South-Eastern Norwegian dialects.

The same does not apply to [[Swedish language|Swedish]] common gender, as the declensions follow a different pattern from both the Norwegian written languages. [[Norwegian Nynorsk]], [[Norwegian Bokmål]] and most spoken dialects retain masculine, feminine and neuter even if their Scandinavian neighbors have lost one of the genders. As shown, the merger of masculine and feminine in these languages and dialects can be considered a reversal of the original split in Proto-Indo-European {{crossreference|(see [[#Indo-European|below]])|printworthy=y}}.

==== Other types of division or subdivision of gender ====
Some gender contrasts are referred to as ''classes''{{crossreference|&nbsp;(for some examples, see [[Noun class]])}}. In some of the [[Slavic languages]], for example, within the masculine and sometimes feminine and neuter genders, there is a further division between animate and inanimate nouns—and in [[Polish grammar|Polish]], also sometimes between nouns denoting humans and non-humans {{crossreference|(for details, see [[#Slavic languages|below]])|printworthy=y}}. A human–non-human (or "rational–non-rational") distinction is also found in [[Dravidian languages]] {{crossreference|(see [[#Dravidian|below]])|printworthy=y}}.