General nouns in Russian form a special group. Its definition is based on the grammatical uniqueness of words, which is based on the change of gender depending on the gender of the specified person.

Gender of nouns

In total, there are 4 genders for nouns in Russian: neuter, masculine and feminine. The last three are easy to determine by the ending or semantic context. But what to do if the word can imply both male and female? This problem occurs with the words “bully”, “cunning”, “rogue”, “wretch”, “touchy”, “sleepy”, “mediocre”, “inhuman”, “hurry”, “piggy”, “bully”, etc. which may change.

It is traditionally believed that there are only three genders in the Russian language, they include masculine, feminine and neuter. To determine the gender of some common words, it has been customary to look to the context. The names of professions, for example, are divided into parallel names: saleswoman-saleswoman, teacher-teacher, schoolboy-schoolgirl, pilot-pilot, chef-cook, writer-writer, athlete-athlete, leader-leader. At the same time, in official documents the masculine gender of these words is more often used to refer to women. And there are also examples of general nouns designated exclusively by the masculine gender: gynecologist, lawyer, linguist, philologist, correspondent, ambassador, academician, judge, toastmaster, surgeon, doctor, therapist, paramedic, master, courier, curator, appraiser, insurer, diplomat, politician, employee, specialist, worker. Now there is a tendency to classify such words as general gender, since they can be applied to both men and women.

Ambiguity of opinions

Disputes about recognizing the existence of a common genus have been going on since the 17th century. Then similar words were mentioned in the grammars of Zizaniy and Smotrytsky. Lomonosov singled out such nouns, pointing out their formal characteristics. Later, researchers began to doubt their existence, defining such nouns as words with alternating gender, depending on what was implied.

So to this day, opinions are divided, some scientists consider nouns of a common gender in the Russian language to be separate homonym words of different genders, while others recognize them in a separate group.

Surnames

Some indeclinable surnames of foreign origin and Russian surnames with -о and -ы/х can be classified as words of general gender. Sagan, Depardieu, Reno, Rabelais, Dumas, Verdi, Maurois, Hugo, Defieux, Michon, Tussaud, Picasso and others. All this among foreign names. Among the Slavic surnames of the common family, the following are often found: Tkachenko, Yurchenko, Nesterenko, Prokhorenko, Chernykh, Makarenko, Ravenskikh, Kucherenko, Dolgikh, Savchenko, Sedykh, Kutsykh and others.

Nationalities

The names of some nationalities are defined as words of a general gender. These include: Khanty, Mansi, Quechua, Komi, Gujarati, Hezhe, Mari, Sami. The fact is that “Mari” and “Mari” already exist, but the word “Mari” will be common to the entire nation or nationality.

According to the same principle, the names of breeds (Sivka, Okapi, Bulanka), as well as representatives of groups (vis-a-vis), are also included in the general genus.

Informal proper names

In addition to surnames, there is an interesting separate category of proper names that relate to the topic of the article. These are abbreviations for official names, which often cause confusion during gender determination.

The name "Sasha" can belong to both Alexandra and Alexander, and the name "Valya" is used to call both the girl Valentina and the boy Valentin. Other such names include “Zhenya” from Evgeniy and Evgeniya, “Slava” from Yaroslav and Yaroslava, Vladislav and Vladislava, “Vasya” from Vasily and Vasilisa.

Evaluative, characterizing words

However, for the first time the question of the existence of common nouns was raised due to evaluative words affecting the character or traits of a person. In direct speech, when using them, it can be more difficult to track the gender of the recipient of the remark, for example: “You are a bully!” Here the word "bully" can be addressed to both the female and male genders. These also include words of the general kind “bully”, “rogue”, “clever”, “well done”, “tramp”, “egoza”, “cripple”, “stinker”, “big”, “little fellow”, “ disheveled."

In fact, there are a lot of similar evaluative words. They can have both positive and negative meaning. However, such words should not be confused with evaluation as a result of metaphorical transfer, due to which they retain the original gender: crow, fox, rag, ulcer, beluga, goat, cow, deer, woodpecker, seal.

General words with negative and positive meanings include: idiot, bigot, reptile, thug, baby, child, baby, quiet, invisible, poor fellow, couch potato, dirty guy, big guy, sweet tooth, neat, greedy, miser, chatter, beast, star , idle talker, mumbler, arrogant, scoundrel, klutz, weasel, asked, hard worker, hard worker, ignorant, onlooker, drunkard, honey, cudgel, imagined, hillbilly, slob, sleepyhead, sneak, whim, liar, hoarder, fidget, toastmaster, swashbuckler , rake.

An example of use is clearly shown in fiction: “A little son came to his father” (Mayakovsky), “There lived the artist Tube, the musician Guslya and other kids: Toropyzhka, Grumpy, Silent, Donut, Rasteryayka, two brothers - Avoska and Neboska. And the most famous among them there was a baby named Dunno." (Nosov). Perhaps, it is the works of Nikolai Nosov that will become a real collection of words with a common gender.

The fewest words in this group are occupied by neutrally expressed ones, such as: right-handed, left-handed, colleague, namesake, orphan. The gender of such words is also common.

How to determine gender in common gender?

The general gender of nouns in the Russian language is determined by the impossibility of confidently indicating gender in the absence of pronouns and gender endings of adjectives. Words that can be classified as either masculine or feminine will be included in this group.

In order to determine the gender of a noun, the accompanying demonstrative pronouns “this, this, that, that” and the endings of adjectives -aya, -y/iy are most often used. But if the name of a profession, position or rank is determined with a consonant ending “sergeant, doctor, doctor, director” and others, then the adjective can only be masculine, but the predicate is expressed feminine. “The doctor prescribed the drug” and “An attractive doctor came out of hospital", "The sergeant gave the order" and "The strict sergeant allowed me to rest", "This Marina Nikolaevna is an exemplary teacher!" and “An exemplary teacher held an open lesson,” and “A cheerful puppeteer held a performance,” and “The old master sat down on the porch.” The predicate does not have to show gender, then the task of determining gender becomes more complicated: “The teacher is conducting a lesson,” “The specialist is making a decision.”

Variety of examples

Thanks to the examples, it becomes clear that a wide variety of words can be found among common nouns, such as “daredevil”, “bully”, “bred”, “forester”, “old-timer”, “tail”, “six”, “ignorant”, “boring”, “white-handed”, “slut”, “weeper”, “dirty”, “little one”. And other words. But they are all united by ambiguity in the definition of gender. Orphan, stylist, marketer, comrade, coordinator, curator, Russian specialist, linguist, shirt, foreman, kid, judge, kolobrodina, feisty, razin, protégé, roar, singer, muffin, bombard, dunce, stupid, suck-up, upstart, youngster, fearful, poor thing, lame, charming, first-grader, high school student, eleven-year-old - all these nouns can be used in relation to both genders.

The wide cultural distribution of common nouns in the Russian language is also interesting. For example, they were widely used in proverbs and sayings:

1. A healthy man in food, but a cripple in work.
2. For every simpleton there is a deceiver.
3. A reveler in his youth is modest in his old age.
4. A drunkard is like a chicken, where he steps, he will peck.

And in literature:

1. “So a strange deal took place, after which the tramp and the millionaire parted, quite satisfied with each other” (Green).
2. “Good girl, one orphan” (Bazhenov).
3. “Your cleanliness, as doctors say, is sterile” (Dubov).
4. “Hillbilly! - What? - She recoiled” (Shargunov).

There are many such examples in the literature. Determining the general gender of the words listed in the exercise is one of the tasks in the Russian language lesson that is easy to cope with.

Genus. There are three genders in the Russian language: masculine, feminine and neuter. Each noun belongs to one of these genders: father, boy, pee A body, wolf, oak, house- masculine nouns; mother, girl, pee A calf, fox, pine, school O la- feminine nouns; animal, tree, wing, field, building, feeling- neuter nouns.

For animate nouns, gender has a real meaning, indicating that they belong to the male or female gender. For inanimate nouns, there is no connection between the meaning of the noun and its gender (even nouns belonging to the same thematic group can have different genders: for example, in the names of the days of the week, the nouns Monday, Tuesday, Thursday- masculine Wednesday A. Friday, Saturday O that- feminine, Sunday- neuter). Thus, for most nouns, gender is grammatical in nature and is determined by a formal feature - by endings in the nominative singular. Nouns used only in the plural have no gender (for example: spirit And. vacation, day).

Masculine gender includes nouns ending :
chicken word analysis a) to a hard consonant - house, table, world, city, view;

b) to a soft consonant (including And) - nail, fire, January, stream, hero;
composition of the word seaside c) on w, w, h, sch(without a soft sign) - knife, pencil, key, cloak .

Some masculine nouns, denoting male persons, as well as proper names for men (usually diminutives), have the ending - a, -i(man, young man, uncle, Borya, Vanya, Sasha, Nikita) .
determine noun case

a) on -a, -i, -iya - country, land, party ;
has long been disassembled by composition b) for a soft consonant - spruce, bed, area ;
union example c) on w, w, h, sch(with a soft sign) - rye, mouse, night, speech, help .
parse the big word as part of speech

a) on -o, -e, -e, -ie- window, sea, towel, gun, skill ;
b) on -me - vr e me,And me, banner, flame .

In this way, neuter nouns are most easily distinguished. Masculine and feminine nouns have partially overlapping forms of the nominative case (for a soft consonant, for w, w, h, sch); It is best to memorize their gender in accordance with the instructions in the dictionary.

• masculine and feminine nouns w, w, h, sch. identical in pronunciation, in writing they differ in the presence of a soft sign after the final consonant in feminine nouns and in its absence in masculine nouns ( rye - knife, night - ball);

• all animate nouns with a suffix -tel- masculine ( writer, reader);

• all inanimate nouns with a suffix -ness- feminine ( youth,
  nationality, independence).

Morphologically, the gender of nouns is manifested in case endings, syntactically - in the form of agreement with adjectives, pronouns, participles, as well as verbs in the past tense, cf. after e daysday, day ' ;passed(m.), last autumn, autumn has passed(and.), after e It's summer, summer has passed(cf.).

Number. Nouns have two numbers: singular and plural ( book - books, table - tables, teacher - teachers).

Only in the singular some nouns are used to denote substances, materials ( milk, salt, gold), abstract concepts (studying, walking,presence, courage), names of some plants ( potatoes, carrots, onions, strawberries), names of countries of the world, as well as proper names (south, from e ver, Moscow, Volga, Caucasus, France,Warsaw).

Only inplural nouns are used that denote so-called paired or composite objects (trousers. gate, scissors, glasses), names of some substances ( perfume, cream, ink).

Gender of nouns

1. What is the gender system of nouns in the Russian language?

All Russian nouns in the form singular can be classified into one of the following genera: male, female, average, general.

2. How to determine the gender of a noun?

The gender of a noun can be determined by agreeing with the pronoun my:

my son, my governor, my curtain, my little house- masculine; my wife, my wall, my night- feminine gender, my window, my sky, my animal- middle gender

For most nouns denoting people, gender can be determined by gender: my apprentice, my grandfather(masculine); my mother, my sister(feminine).

The gender of nouns is determined by their singular form. Nouns used only in the plural have no gender: manger, pasta, trousers, pitchfork.

3. Which nouns belong to the general gender?

Common nouns are nouns that characterize man, give him assessment characteristics; they have endings -a, -i and belong to the 1st declension: slob, ringleader, singer, hard worker, dirty guy, dude, drunkard, sissy, sleepyhead, crybaby.

Generic nouns can denote both male and female people: What a slob you are! What a slob you are!

4. How to determine the gender of unchangeable nouns?

Gender of immutable nouns, calling people, determined by gender: brave hidalgo, refined lady.

Nouns meaning professions and occupation, are masculine: military attache, night porter. Nouns of the 2nd declension with a zero ending, naming persons by profession ( doctor, professor, associate professor, driver etc.), even if used in relation to female persons, are still nouns masculine.

Unchangeable nouns that call animals, belong to the masculine gender, although when indicating a female they can be used as feminine nouns: Australian kangaroo, funny chimpanzee; chimpanzee feeding her babies. Exceptions: tsetse(fly), Ivasi(fish) - feminine.

Immutable inanimate nouns are neuter: night taxi, delicious stew, new blinds, aromatic cocoa, aged Bordeaux, heady Chardonnay, hot cappuccino, locomotive depot, new coat, wicker flowerpot. Exceptions: coffee, penalty, sirocco(masculine); avenue, salami(feminine).

Genus foreign language geographical names determined by the generic word: distant Monaco(this is a principality, i.e. a neuter noun, which means the word Monaco also neuter) wide Limpopo(river - river), densely populated Tokyo(city - m.r.). If you can use two different generic words, then agreement options are possible: independent Haiti(state - s.r.), independent Haiti(country - female) and distant Haiti(island - m.r.); beautiful Brescia(city - district) and beautiful Brescia(province - f.r.). In some cases, the gender of a noun is established by tradition, so a dictionary check is required.

To use words correctly, you need to understand what kind they are. Is coffee, for example, neuter masculine? If it’s average, then you need to say: “My coffee is cold.” And if it’s male, “My coffee is cold.” How to avoid being branded as an illiterate person when determining the neuter gender?

What are the neuter words? Examples

The division of parts of speech by gender (feminine, neuter and masculine) is not unique to the Russian language. The ending of a word determines whether it belongs to the neuter gender. Neuter nouns are usually inanimate, although there are exceptions:

• creature,
• animal,
• monster,
• deity,
• child,
• monster,
• person (official).

If a word comes from another language, ends in a vowel, is inanimate, and according to established tradition is not declined, it is considered neuter.

Neuter nouns answer the question: whose is it? If you can say about a word: “It’s mine,” then it’s a neuter noun. There are two types of endings for such words:

1. -o, -e, -e, -ie. These are, for example, the following words: pots, lake, muffler, gun, understanding.
2. -me. For example, stirrup, crown, name.

Neuter words can be not only nouns, but also adjectives, numerals and pronouns.

Coffee - it or he?

It seems that the word "coffee" does not obey the rule: it ends in "e", but at the same time it is not neuter, but masculine. exception? Not really. The fact is that the word, along with the drink, came to Russia with Peter the Great. Tea had already been known for a long time, and by analogy with this drink the new product began to be called “coffee.” Then no one doubted that the word was masculine. Its diminutive version of “coffees” is still beyond doubt.

Over time, the word “coffee” became obsolete and was replaced by “coffee.” The word became unbreakable. And here a paradox arose. According to the rules, this word must have a neuter gender. This is why, intuitively, people began to use “coffee” as a neuter word. A process began that transferred the word “metro” from the masculine to the neuter. You probably remember Utesov’s song: “But the metro sparkled with oak railings...”

Why don’t linguists recognize the neuter gender for coffee? Because this word has a special meaning. Using it in the neuter gender is contrary to literary tradition, and therefore is perceived as illiterate. The coffee ended up in a place for which speakers of literate Russian speech are fighting. These are the words contract, rings, blinds, cottage cheese, provision and several others.

And although since 2002 you can say “my coffee” in colloquial speech, only the masculine gender is recognized in writing.

Declension

Changing words by case is called declension. Neuter words with endings can be inflected. For neuter nouns there are the following rules (see table).

Common mistakes

A typical mistake was the incorrect determination of the gender of some words. Because of the ending “o,” which is pronounced “a” in the unstressed version, some inflect such words into the feminine form. Example:

• The buffet sells pies with jam, manga and dried apricots.
• We saw the natives living in bungalow.
• The neighbors bought piano.

The correct options would be to use the highlighted words in the neuter form. That is: with jam, with mango, in a bungalow, we bought a piano.

The second common mistake is trying to change indeclinable nouns by case. It’s not just children who get confused, and incredible words of feminine, masculine, and neuter gender arise.

Words that do not change by case. Examples

In addition to inflected words, there are also neuter words that are invariable by case:

• arpeggio,
• video,
• graffiti,
• dragee,
• neckline,
• coupe,
• cafe,
• mango,
• mini,
• neutrino,
• penalty,
• piano,
• rendezvous,
• solo,
• trio,
• Taxi,
• fouetté,
• facsimile.

This list is far from complete. Therefore, if difficulties arise, it is better to turn to dictionaries.

How to remember words without endings: a game

To avoid making mistakes in declination, there is a simple and fun way to check. Try putting these words in several different cases. If it turns out funny and absurd, then this word is not declined according to cases.

• The kangaroo put on his pince-nez (wrong, there is no such word, you need to put “pince-nez”).
• To get to the cafe, I took a taxi (it would be correct: “taxi”).
• We gorged ourselves on crème brûlée, blancmange and dragées (correctly: “crème brûlée, blancmange and dragées”).
• Let's meet near the depot and go watch the movie "Dynamo" (you need: "near the depot, the movie "Dynamo").
• I am dissatisfied with the passe-partout with a photo and a panel (it would be correct: “passe-partout with a photo and a panel”).

Play this game with your children. It is not difficult, the main thing is not to forget that these words are not declined by case. Regular games with words develop intelligence and expand vocabulary. Soon the child will feel how to construct a phrase and use words, and will not make mistakes.

The sign of a masculine, feminine or neuter gender of a noun is expressed primarily syntactically - one or another form of the adjective (black cat, black mark, black coat), participle (broken nose, broken arm, broken tree), numeral (third lesson, third shift, third place), pronouns (every man, every woman, every Sunday), a verb in the form of the past tense and the subjunctive mood (the son would come/would come; the daughter would come/would come; the sun would set/would set), combined with the given noun.

But along with this, the belonging of a noun to one gender or another is in the overwhelming majority of cases determined morphologically - by the nature of the stem and endings in one or another type of declension.

1. The masculine gender includes:

• nouns with a base on solid consonants and a zero ending in the nominative singular case, changing according to the second substantive declension: table, oak, bull, ruff, knife;
• most nouns with a base on soft consonants, including [j], changing according to the second substantive declension: horse, beast, bumblebee, rook, hero;
• indeclinable noun path;
• By meaning, the masculine gender also includes nouns denoting male persons with the ending -a (-я) (first substantive declension): servant, Misha, Borya; nouns with the magnifying suffixes -ina, -ishche, as well as with the suffixes -ishka, -ishko, formed from the stems of masculine nouns: house - domina, domische, domishko; naughty - naughty.

2. The feminine gender includes:

• the vast majority of nouns with the ending -а (-я) in the nominative singular case, changing according to the first substantive declension: sister, wall, earth (a small part of nouns with stems ending in -а (-я) belongs to the masculine and general gender: young man , slob);
• some of the nouns with a base on soft consonants, except for “th”, changing according to the third substantive declension: shadow, doe, network, night.

3. The neuter gender includes:

• nouns ending in -o (-e), changing according to the second substantive declension: window, field.
• ten indeclinable nouns in -name: name, time, tribe, seed, crown, udder, burden, flame, stirrup, banner.

There are a large number of indeclinable nouns of various genders, which express their gender only syntactically. When determining the gender of such nouns, it is necessary to take into account that for animate nouns, the grammatical gender correlates with the gender of the being called: attache, missus. Inanimate nouns are usually neuter (depot, coat, stew, taxi, metro), exceptions: coffee, Hindi, Swahili and other names of languages ​​(these are masculine nouns). The gender of indeclinable geographical names correlates with the gender of the corresponding common noun: Tbilisi (city) is masculine, Ontario (lake) is neuter, Mississippi (river) is feminine.