3 ms·
There is no rule in Latin that 1st declension nouns (i.e most nouns ending in -a) like nauta, pirata, pirata, etc must be feminine —- morphology and gender are
by stevula 6y ago
There is no rule in Latin that 1st declension nouns (i.e most nouns ending in -a) like nauta, pirata, pirata, etc must be feminine —- morphology and gender are independent. There was merely a strong tendency for them to be feminine, but as you can see there are exceptions. In short, -a does not mean feminine.
Another factor is that all three of those nouns are loanwords from Ancient Greek, which had quite a few 1st declension nouns that are masculine. Agricola (“farmer”) is an example of a native Latin masculine noun ending in -a.
You are right that occupational words that were typically associated with men tend to be masculine. Generally, nouns that describe people do match the gender of the person, though there are some exceptions.
Note: you’ll also find some -o nouns in Italian and Spanish that are feminine (e.g. la mano “the hand”).
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> In short, -a does not mean feminine. Weeeellll... Latin doesn't distinguish nounal case endings from adjectival case endings. (I believe Russian does, which makes resolving certain grammatical questions much easier.) But the gender of a noun is defined by the gender of an adjective that agrees with the noun. So quercus alta, a tall oak tree, is unambiguously feminine, despite ending in -us, because we can see that the adjective agreeing with it is feminine. How do we know the adjective is feminine? That's easy, it ends in -a, and -a means feminine. This tends not to support the theory that "-a does not mean feminine". :-/
- samatman 6y agoThe reverse as well, the most common being el día, "the day"
- oytis 6y agoGreek, for one, also has 2nd declension feminine nouns, e.g. παρθένος.