Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents/Table des matières
- Preface/Préface
- Acknowledgments/Remerciements
- Brief introduction to the French language (with reference to the French of francophone countries)/Brève introduction à la langue française (avec référence au français des pays francophones)
- Part I
- Part II
- 6 The definite article/L'article défini
- 7 The indefinite article/L'article indéfini
- 8 The partitive article/L'article partitif
- 9 Gender/Le genre
- 10 Number (singular and plural)/Le nombre (singulier et pluriel)
- Part III
- Part IV
- Part V
- Part VI
- Part VII
- Part VIII
- Part IX
- Part X
- Part XI
9 - Gender/Le genre
from Part II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents/Table des matières
- Preface/Préface
- Acknowledgments/Remerciements
- Brief introduction to the French language (with reference to the French of francophone countries)/Brève introduction à la langue française (avec référence au français des pays francophones)
- Part I
- Part II
- 6 The definite article/L'article défini
- 7 The indefinite article/L'article indéfini
- 8 The partitive article/L'article partitif
- 9 Gender/Le genre
- 10 Number (singular and plural)/Le nombre (singulier et pluriel)
- Part III
- Part IV
- Part V
- Part VI
- Part VII
- Part VIII
- Part IX
- Part X
- Part XI
Summary
Exceptionally, given the length of this chapter, there are two passages of French illustrating the problems of gender in French. The first focuses on Thebes, an illustrious city in ancient Egypt, while the second describes the Saharan city of Ghardaïa.
Thebes, in Upper Egypt, is the center of an important tourist industry, given the splendor of an ancient and fascinating culture. The visit to Thebes involves Luxor and Karnac. These three ancient cities with their monuments lie along the Nile. Note that the city of Thèbes is feminine while Le Caire, Louxor and Karnac are masculine, a general difficulty highlighted in the body of this chapter. Note also that, together with some other towns and cities in the world, Caire is preceded by Le. Le Nil indicates that rivers are generally, but not always, masculine. There are a great number of nouns in this passage, the gender of which could be deceiving for an English speaker: crépuscule, temple, cadre, musée, fleuve, mythe, caractère, hiéroglyphe, obélisque, pylône, vestige and apogée, among other nouns, are masculine, and nécropole, énigme and ruines are feminine. Just a few translations are given.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Reference Grammar of French , pp. 119 - 155Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011