El gènere en les llengües romàniques: quan el gènere expressa el nombre i el femení és neutre = Gender in Romance: When Gender Expresses Number and the Feminine is Neuter
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The label gender is used for different grammatical notions: the distinction of a series of conventional noun classes, the distinction of different semantic categories (particularly inanimates and sex in animates), or the characterization of pronouns referring to humans or things in general. This paper reviews the functioning of grammatical gender in Romance languages. It starts from phenomena known in these languages, such as types of distribution of markers, the existence of an ambigeneric noun class in some languages, the variation in gender assignment, and cases of agreement. Then it pays particular attention to collective feminine nouns and the so-called mass neuter, as well as to the opposition between pronouns referring to humans and those referring to things in general. As for collective feminine nouns and he mass neuter, it is shown how morphemes that apparently are gender markers are used to express an opposition between countable and uncountable nouns, usually linked to number distinctions. Concerning the opposition between pronouns referring to humans and those referring to things in general, an explanation is given for the use of feminine forms for pronouns with a neuter value
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