Editing Grammatical gender (section)

==== Personal pronouns ====
With personal pronouns, the gender of the pronoun is likely to agree with the ''natural gender'' of the referent. Indeed, in most European languages, personal pronouns are gendered; for example English (the [[English personal pronouns|personal pronouns]] ''he'', ''she'' and ''it'' are used depending on whether the referent is male, female, or inanimate or non-human; this is in spite of the fact that English does not generally have grammatical gender). A parallel example is provided by the object suffixes of verbs in [[Modern Standard Arabic|Arabic]], which correspond to object pronouns, and which also inflect for gender in the [[grammatical person|second person]] (though not in the first):
* "I love you", said to a male: ''{{transliteration|ar|uḥibbuk'''a'''}}'' ({{lang|ar|أُحِبُّكَ}})
* "I love you", said to a female: ''{{transliteration|ar|uḥibbuk'''i'''}}'' ({{lang|ar|أُحِبُّكِ}})

Not all languages have gendered pronouns. In languages that never had grammatical gender, there is normally just one word for "he" and "she", like {{wikt-lang|id|dia}} in [[Malay language|Malay]] and [[Indonesian language|Indonesian]], {{wikt-lang|hu|ő}} in [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] and {{wikt-lang|tr|o}} in [[Turkish language|Turkish]]. These languages might only have different pronouns and inflections in the [[grammatical person|third person]] to differentiate between people and inanimate objects, but even this distinction is often absent. In written [[Finnish grammar|Finnish]], for example, {{wikt-lang|fi|hän}} is used for "he" and "she" and {{wikt-lang|fi|se}} for "it", but in the colloquial language {{lang|fi|se}} is usually used for "he" and "she" as well.{{crossreference|&nbsp;(For more on these different types of pronoun, see [[Third-person pronoun]].)}}

Issues may arise in languages with gender-specific pronouns in cases when the gender of the referent is unknown or not specified; this is a matter that arises frequently in relation to [[gender-neutral language]], as with English usage of [[Singular they|Singular ''they'']].

In some cases, the gender of a pronoun is not marked in the form of the pronoun itself, but is marked on other words by way of agreement. Thus the French word for 'I' is {{wikt-lang|fr|je}}, regardless of who is speaking; but this word becomes feminine or masculine depending on the sex of the speaker, as may be reflected through adjective agreement: {{lang|fr|je suis fort'''e'''}} ('I am strong', spoken/written by a female); {{lang|fr|je suis fort}} (the same but by a male).

In [[null-subject language]]s (and in some [[Ellipsis (grammar)|elliptical]] expressions in other languages), such agreement may take place even though the pronoun does not in fact appear. For example, in [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]]:
* '[I am] very grateful', said/written by a male: {{lang|pt|muito obrigad'''o'''}}
* the same, by a female: {{lang|pt|muito obrigad'''a'''}}
The two sentences above mean literally 'much obliged'; the adjective agrees with the natural gender of the speaker, that is, with the gender of the first person pronoun which does not appear explicitly here.