Editing Grammatical gender (section)

=== Grammatical vs. natural gender <span id="Natural gender"></span> ===
The ''natural gender'' of a noun, pronoun or noun phrase is a gender to which it would be expected to belong based on relevant attributes of its referent. Although grammatical gender can coincide with natural gender, it does not need to.

==== Grammatical gender can match natural gender ====
This usually means masculine or feminine, depending on the referent's sex. For example, in [[Spanish language|Spanish]], {{wikt-lang|es|mujer}} ("woman") is feminine whereas {{wikt-lang|es|hombre}} ("man") is masculine; these attributions occur solely due to the semantically inherent gender character of each noun.{{citation needed|date=February 2015}}

==== Grammatical gender need not match natural gender ====
{{unreferenced section|find=grammatical gender|find2=different from natural gender|date=June 2023}}
The ''grammatical gender'' of a noun does not always coincide with its natural gender. An example of this is the [[German language|German]] word {{wikt-lang|de|Mädchen}} ("girl"); this is derived from {{wikt-lang|de|Magd}} ("maiden"), [[Germanic Umlaut|umlaut]]ed to {{lang|de|Mäd-}} with the [[diminutive suffix]] {{lang|de|-chen}}, and this suffix always makes the noun grammatically neuter. Hence the grammatical gender of {{lang|de|Mädchen}} is neuter, although its natural gender is feminine (because it refers to a female person).

Other examples include:
* [[Old English]] {{wikt-lang|ang|wīf}} (neuter) and {{wikt-lang|ang|wīfmann}} (masculine), meaning "woman"
* [[German language|German]] {{wikt-lang|de|Weib}} (neuter), meaning "woman" (the word is now pejorative and generally replaced with {{lang|de|die Frau}}, originally 'lady', feminine of obsolete {{lang|de|der [[wikt:Appendix:Proto-Germanic/frawjô|Fro]]}}, meaning 'lord')
* [[Irish language|Irish]] {{lang|ga|cailín}} (masculine) meaning "girl", and {{lang|ga|stail}} (feminine) meaning "stallion"
* [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] {{lang|pt|mulherão}} (masculine), meaning "voluptuous woman"
* [[Scottish Gaelic language|Scottish Gaelic]] {{lang|gd|boireannach}} (masculine), meaning "woman"
* [[Slovene language|Slovenian]] {{lang|sl|dekle}} (neuter), meaning "girl"
* [[Polish language|Polish]] {{lang|pl|babsztyl}} (masculine), meaning "unpleasant (usually old and ugly) woman"
*[[Czech language|Czech]] {{lang|cs|děvče}} (neuter), meaning "a young girl"
Normally, such exceptions are a small minority.

When a noun with conflicting natural and grammatical gender is the antecedent of a pronoun, it may not be clear which gender of pronoun to choose. There is a certain tendency to keep the grammatical gender when a close back-reference is made, but to switch to natural gender when the reference is further away. For example, in German, the sentences "The girl has come home from school. She is now doing her homework" can be translated in two ways:
* {{lang|de|Das <u>Mädchen</u> (n.) ist aus der Schule gekommen. '''Es''' (n.) macht jetzt '''seine''' (n.) Hausaufgaben.}}
* {{lang|de|Das <u>Mädchen</u> (n.) ist aus der Schule gekommen. '''Sie''' (f.) macht jetzt '''ihre''' (f.) Hausaufgaben.}}
Though the second sentence may appear grammatically incorrect ([[Synesis|constructio ad sensum]]), it is common in speech. With one or more intervening sentences, the second form becomes even more likely. However, a switch to the natural gender is never possible with articles and ''attributive'' pronouns or adjectives. Thus it can never be correct to say {{lang|de|*eine Mädchen}} ("a girl" – with female indefinite article) or {{lang|de|*diese kleine Mädchen}} ("this little girl" – with female demonstrative pronoun and adjective).

This phenomenon is quite popular in Slavic languages: for example Polish {{wikt-lang|pl|kreatura}} (deprecative "creature") is feminine but can be used to refer to both man (masculine gender), woman (feminine gender), child (neuter gender) or even animate nouns (e.g. a dog being masculine). Similarly with other deprecatory nouns as {{wikt-lang|pl|pierdoła}}, {{wikt-lang|pl|ciapa}}, {{wikt-lang|pl|łamaga}}, {{wikt-lang|pl|łajza}}, {{wikt-lang|pl|niezdara}} ("wuss, klutz"); {{wikt-lang|pl|niemowa}} ("mute") can be used deprecatively as described previously, and then can be used for verbs marked for the male and female genders.

==== Gender contrasts on human versus sentient referents ====
In the case of languages which have masculine and feminine genders, the relation between biological sex and grammatical gender tends to be less exact in the case of animals than in the case of people. In Spanish, for instance, a [[cheetah]] is always {{lang|es|un guepardo}} (masculine) and a [[zebra]] is always {{lang|es|una cebra}} (feminine), regardless of their biological sex. In Russian a [[rat]] and a [[butterfly]] are always {{transliteration|ru|krysa}} ({{lang|ru|крыса}}) and {{transliteration|ru|babochka}} ({{lang|ru|бабочка}}) (feminine). In French, a giraffe is always {{lang|fr|une girafe}}, whereas an elephant is always {{lang|fr|un éléphant}}. To specify the sex of an animal, an adjective may be added, as in {{lang|es|un guepardo hembra}} ("a female cheetah"), or {{lang|es|una cebra macho}} ("a male zebra"). [[Suppletion|Different names]] for the male and the female of a species are more frequent for common pets or farm animals, {{abbr|e.g.|for example}} English ''cow'' and ''bull'', Spanish {{lang|es|vaca}} "cow" and {{lang|es|toro}} "bull", Russian ''{{lang|ru|баран}}'' ({{transliteration|ru|baran}}) "ram" and ''{{lang|ru|овца}}'' ({{transliteration|ru|ovtsa}}) "ewe".

As regards the pronouns used to refer to animals, these generally agree in gender with the nouns denoting those animals, rather than the animals' sex (natural gender). In a language like English, which does not assign grammatical gender to nouns, the pronoun used for referring to objects (''it'') is often used for animals also. However, if the sex of the animal is known, and particularly in the case of companion animals, the gendered pronouns (''he'' and ''she'') may be used as they would be for a human.

In [[Polish language|Polish]], a few general words such as {{lang|pl|zwierzę}} ("animal") or {{lang|pl|bydlę}} ("animal, one head of cattle") are neuter, but most species names are masculine or feminine. When the sex of an animal is known, it will normally be referred to using gendered pronouns consistent with its sex; otherwise the pronouns will correspond to the gender of the noun denoting its species.