Editing Grammatical gender (section)

==== 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.