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Glite Dictionary
gender agreement

gender agreement

6.2
Words in a phrase use the same masculine or feminine form
  • noun
  • /ˈdʒɛndər əˈɡriːmənt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : acuerdo de género
  • Mistakes in gender agreement are common for learners of French.

Examples

  • The gender agreement in this sentence is incorrect.

  • The test assessed the students' understanding of gender agreement in Italian.

  • In Spanish, adjectives show gender agreement with the nouns they modify.

  • Understanding gender agreement is crucial for mastering the language.

  • In Spanish, gender agreement means that adjectives must match the gender of the nouns they describe.

  • The rules of gender agreement dictate that a feminine noun should be paired with a feminine adjective.

  • Understanding gender agreement is essential for constructing grammatically correct sentences in many languages.

Synonyms

agreement
vsgender agreement
  • Specialized
5 3.5

When words change form so they match each other, for example subject and verb

focuses only on matching masculine, feminine, or neuter forms within a phrase

Surface Forms

gender agreement singular
gender agreements plural

Morphology

gender + agreement

The phrase is fully compositional: 'gender' (grammatical gender) combined with 'agreement' (matching between words) straightforwardly denotes matching of gender between related words. This is standard grammatical terminology and parallels structures in many languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

The term gender agreement pictures words in a sentence 'agreeing' about gender: gender means labels like 'masculine' or 'feminine' and agreement means other words must 'match' that label. So if a noun is one gender, its adjectives and articles change form to 'match' it, which is why the phrase means words in a phrase must have the same gender.