NativLang | Romance Languages: noun number & gender @NativLang | Uploaded January 2013 | Updated October 2024, 1 week ago.
The next in a series of lessons introducing the basic grammar of the Romance languages. This video gives a brief overview of the grammatical gender and number of nouns in Vulgar Latin and the Romance languages. Learn about masculine, feminine & neuter nouns and singular & plural nouns in Vulgar Latin and the modern Romance languages.
Neuter nouns generally merged with masculine nouns in the modern languages: *muru (masc.) and *verbu (neut.) are both treated as masculine in e.g. French, Spanish and Italian. Romanian offers an exception: Romanian 'mur' is masculine, while 'verb' is neuter.
There's an East/West split in the way languages handle plurals. Latin MVRVS had a nominative plural MVRI and an accusative plural MVROS. Western Romance languages like Portuguese use the plural *muros, while Eastern Romance languages like Romanian rely on *muri. We'll explore nominatives and accusatives a bit more in the videos on noun cases and object pronouns.
"The Grammar of Romance" has an associated website (free) and book ($). Both offer more explanations and examples:
nativlang.com/romance-languages
amazon.com/gp/product/1475246633/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=nativlangu-20
CORRECTIONS & ADDITIONS
- I pronounce the Brazilian Portuguese word 'artes' as /'aχtʃiʃ/. A more typical Brazilian pronunciation of that word is /'axtʃis/, with plural -s pronounced /s/ instead of /ʃ/.
MUSIC by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
The next in a series of lessons introducing the basic grammar of the Romance languages. This video gives a brief overview of the grammatical gender and number of nouns in Vulgar Latin and the Romance languages. Learn about masculine, feminine & neuter nouns and singular & plural nouns in Vulgar Latin and the modern Romance languages.
Neuter nouns generally merged with masculine nouns in the modern languages: *muru (masc.) and *verbu (neut.) are both treated as masculine in e.g. French, Spanish and Italian. Romanian offers an exception: Romanian 'mur' is masculine, while 'verb' is neuter.
There's an East/West split in the way languages handle plurals. Latin MVRVS had a nominative plural MVRI and an accusative plural MVROS. Western Romance languages like Portuguese use the plural *muros, while Eastern Romance languages like Romanian rely on *muri. We'll explore nominatives and accusatives a bit more in the videos on noun cases and object pronouns.
"The Grammar of Romance" has an associated website (free) and book ($). Both offer more explanations and examples:
nativlang.com/romance-languages
amazon.com/gp/product/1475246633/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=nativlangu-20
CORRECTIONS & ADDITIONS
- I pronounce the Brazilian Portuguese word 'artes' as /'aχtʃiʃ/. A more typical Brazilian pronunciation of that word is /'axtʃis/, with plural -s pronounced /s/ instead of /ʃ/.
MUSIC by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
