Instruction manual

When determining the feminine noun of inanimate nouns, keep in mind that they have endings in the singular form -a, -i (wall, will) and zero if the noun ends in a soft sign (rye). For animated nouns, the determining attribute is their belonging to female beings (girl, cat). In order not to confuse the feminine and masculine nouns at the end, substitute the verb “she, mine” to check the pronouns. For example, a song (she, mine).

Define the masculine gender of nouns at the end of the form: zero for words ending in a consonant (home, table), a, -i for animate nouns, male creatures (uncle, Seryozha). In order not to confuse the gender of nouns ending in a soft sign, also substitute the verb “he, mine” (stump, day) to check the pronoun.

Define nouns of the middle gender by the endings of the initial form -o, -e and by substituting the pronouns “it, mine” (field, window). Please note that the group of divergent nouns ending in the combination -me also belongs to the middle gender (tribe, seed, etc.). Among the nouns of the middle gender there are almost no animated ones, their number is very insignificant (child, creature, animal).

Among nouns, several special groups stand out, the genus in which is difficult. These include general nouns, non-declining and compound words.
Relate the meanings of general nouns to their affiliation with female or male subjects. For example, a girl- (feminine), a snotty boy (masculine). Common nouns include those that denote the qualities of people (glutton, ignoramus, crybaby) or the names of persons by profession, position, occupation (Ivanov - architect Ivanova).

Keep in mind that the gender of non-declining nouns is associated with their animation / inanimation, a specific / generic concept. In animate non-declining nouns, determine gender by gender (monsieur, miss). Nouns giving names to animals, birds, belong to the masculine gender (ponies, kangaroos, cockatoos). Inanimate usually refers to the middle clan (, mulberry). The exceptions are words whose gender is determined by association with the generic names: kohlrabi - cabbage (feminine), Hindi - language (masculine), etc.

To determine the gender of non-deviating proper nouns denoting geographical names, select a generic term (city, river, etc.). For example, the city of Rio de Janeiro (male gender), the Gobi Desert (female gender).

The gender of complex words (abbreviations) is determined by the gender of the leading word “decrypted” phrases: UN - United Nations, the leading word “organization” (feminine).

note

Some nouns have variant forms of the genus. At the same time, some of them are equal (aviary - aviary, banknotes - banknote), and the rest have stylistic marks: hall - hall (outdated form), giraffe - giraffe (outdated form).

Useful advice

For nouns that are used only in the plural form, the gender category is not defined (white, vise, everyday life).

Related article

Sources:

• childbirth of the Russian language

To determine the gender of nouns, you must first determine the word that answers the question of who, what. This is a noun. In Russian, it can be masculine, feminine and neuter.

Instruction manual

Identify the gender of the noun at the end or final consonant. The masculine word refers to the consonant and the –th. For example, a house, a loaf. The female gender includes nouns in –a, –th, –th. For example, cousin,. The middle gender includes nouns in ––, ––, ––. For example, a window, a dress.

See if the given noun is an exception. These include nouns ending in –j. Such nouns can be either feminine or masculine. So, the dictionary refers to the masculine gender, and the word copybook refers to the female.

Pay attention to the gender of animate nouns. These are nouns that mean living things. Such words refer to either the female or male gender. Exceptions are a child who belongs to the middle gender. In animated nouns, determine the gender either by the natural sex or animal, or by the end of the noun. The elephant is a masculine noun, and the monkey is a feminine noun.

Correctly identify the gender of nouns denoting professions. They are masculine and feminine. Moreover, most nouns denoting professions belong to the masculine gender: doctor, engineer,.

Pay particular attention to the gender of borrowed nouns. Foreign nouns often have atypical for the Russian language -and, -y, -y. Such nouns do not change either in numbers or in cases. The masculine gender includes the names and names of cities and islands. The female gender includes female names and surnames, river names and newspaper names. The middle genus includes the names of inanimate objects.

note

Nouns in consonant and –y always refer to the masculine gender.

Most feminine nouns of foreign origin end in –i.
Nouns ending in suffixes –onok –enok are always masculine.

Related article

Sources:

• “Grammar of the Russian language in illustrations”, Pekhlivanova K.I., Lebedeva M.N., 1985.
• how to determine the gender in Russian

Definition kind  in Russian the language  - One of the most common tasks for people learning this language. In Russian the language  there are three kind  - male, female and medium. In addition, there is a general genus, the determination of which causes the greatest difficulty.

You will need

• The ability to distinguish endings in various parts of speech

Instruction manual

Highlight the endings of adjectives and verbs that are consistent with the desired word. Most often, this is enough to determine. Put the verb in the past tense, and take the noun with the adjective in the nominative case. The best friend has come, the best friend has come, the new one has come up. These are examples of the endings of adjectives and verbs in the masculine, feminine and neuter gender.

Determine if the search word does not indicate a profession or occupation. Most of these words formally refer to the masculine gender. For example, a new doctor said (o), a new doctor said (o); he is an excellent specialist, she is an excellent specialist. Please note that the names of some professions are not masculine. kind. For example, the word "ballerina" has the form of a female kind.

Remember that words like "slacker, fidget, badass, ignoramus, greedy, clever" and the like refer to the general genus. These words give an emotional touch to both male and female words. kind, and called the occupation of these individuals.

remember, that kind  abbreviations - a case of particular complexity. For abbreviations formed by adding the parts of a word, determine the gender by the main word: new Sberbank, high-quality organizational work. In the case where the word by adding sounds or letters (vocational school, RAS), clear rules for determining kind  no.

Form the gender of non-declining nouns borrowed from other languages \u200b\u200baccording to the following rule. If a noun denotes an object, then it belongs to the middle gender (coat, muffler). If it means, then it refers to the male gender (chimpanzee). If it calls a geographical object, then it refers to the genus of most words of this type in the language  (Mississippi Feminine kindbecause it is a river). Do not forget that in each such case there are exceptions. Refer to authoritative dictionaries if any are in doubt.

Related videos

Abbreviation  (ital. abbreviatura from lat. brevis - short) is a word consisting of the names of the initial letters or sounds of the lexical elements of the original phrase. The name of the term determines the way abbreviations are formed by abbreviation (truncation of the foundations). In determining kind  of such complicated words it is necessary to “decipher” it, i.e. lead to the original combination.

You will need

• - Dictionary.

Instruction manual

Determine what type the analyzed is. 3 types are traditionally distinguished: - letter type, i.e. composed of the alphabetic names of the letters of the words forming the original phrase (RF, Moscow Art Theater, ORT); - sound type, i.e. formed from the words included in the phrase (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UN, Moscow Art Theater). Usually sound abbreviations are formed when there are vowels inside it; - of a mixed type, i.e. made up partly of the names of the initial letters, partly of the sounds (Germany, CSKA).

Identify the original phrase from which the abbreviation is formed. If you have difficulty decoding, refer to dictionaries or other sources of information.

Identify the gender of the leading word. According to it, this grammatical category is fixed for the abbreviation. For example, hard currency is a freely convertible currency. Defined word "female currency" kind. So, SLE is the same kind.

Remember that the gender of some initial abbreviations has changed over time and the features of their use in speech. If a compound word has acquired the ability to decline in the declension of names, then it has acquired the form of a masculine kind. For example, a university - to study at a university. Initially, the word referred to the middle gender, because university -

General nouns in the Russian language form a special group. Its definition is based on the grammatical uniqueness of words, which is based on a change of gender depending on the gender of the specified person.

Gender nouns

In total, there are 4 kinds of nouns in the Russian gender, middle, masculine and feminine. The last three are easy to identify by the end or semantic context. But what if the word can mean immediately both male and female? Such a problem occurs with the words “badass”, “cunning”, “slander”, “miserable”, “impatient”, “drowsy”, “mediocrity”, “non-human”, “haste”, “pig”, “bull’s”, genus which may vary.

It is traditionally believed that in the Russian language there are only three genera, they include male, female and middle. To determine the gender of some common words, it was customary to refer to the context. The names of professions, for example, are divided into parallel names: seller-saleswoman, teacher-teacher, schoolboy-schoolgirl, pilot-pilot, cook-cook, writer-writer, athlete-athlete, supervisor-leader. At the same time, in official documents women are more often used the masculine gender of these words. And there are examples of general nouns designated exclusively by masculine gender: gynecologist, lawyer, linguist, philologist, correspondent, ambassador, academician, judge, host, surgeon, doctor, therapist, paramedic, master, courier, curator, appraiser, insurer, diplomat, politician, employee, specialist, employee. Now there is a tendency to attribute such words to a common gender, since they can be applied to both men and women.

Ambiguity

Disputes over the recognition of the existence of a general kind have been going on since the 17th century. Then similar words were mentioned in the grammars of Zizan and Smotritsky. Lomonosov singled out such nouns, indicating their formal characteristics. Later, researchers began to doubt their existence, defining such nouns as words with alternating gender, depending on the implied.

So to this day, opinions are divided, some scholars consider nouns of a general gender in Russian as separate homonymous words of different genders, and the other recognizes them in a separate group.

Surnames

To the words of a general kind, some non-declining surnames of foreign origin and Russian surnames in -o-s / them can be added. Sagan, Depardieu, Renault, Rabelais, Dumas, Verdi, Morois, Hugo, Defier, Michonne, Tussauds, Picasso and others. All this among foreign surnames. Among Slavic surnames of a general kind are often found: Tkachenko, Yurchenko, Nesterenko, Prokhorenko, Chernykh, Makarenko, Ravensky, Kucherenko, Dolgikh, Savchenko, Sedykh, Kutsykh and others.

Nationalities

The names of some nationalities are defined as words of a general kind. These include: Khanty, Mansi, Quechua, Komi, Gujarati, hezhe, Mari, Sami. The fact is that the "Mari" and the "Mari" already exist, but the word "Mari" will be common to all nationality or nationality.

According to the same principle, the names of the breeds (sivivka, okapi, bulanka), as well as representatives of groups (vis-a-vis) are added to the general genus.

Informal proper names

In addition to surnames, there is an interesting separate category of proper names related to the topic of the article. These are abbreviations of official names, which are often confused when determining sex.

The name "Sasha" can belong to both Alexandra and Alexander, and the name "Valya" is used to name both the girl Valentina and the boy Valentine. Such names also include “Zhenya” from Eugene and Eugene, “Glory” from Yaroslav and Yaroslav, Vladislav and Vladislav, “Vasya” from Vasily and Vasilisa.

Evaluative, characterizing words

However, for the first time about the existence of common nouns, the question arose because of evaluative words affecting the character or traits of a person. In direct speech, when using them, it can be more difficult to track the gender of the recipient of the replica, for example: "You are a badass!" Here the word "badass" can be addressed to both female and male. These include the words of the general kind "bullie", "rogue", "clever", "well done", "tramp", "egoza", "cripple", "stinker", "dylda", "malyavka", " disheveled. "

In fact, there are a lot of similar assessment words. They can be either positive or negative. At the same time, such words should not be confused with assessment as a result of a metaphorical transfer, because of which they preserve the original genus: crow, fox, rag, ulcer, beluga, goat, cow, deer, woodpecker, seal.

General words with negative and positive meanings include: bastard, prude, reptile, bruiser, baby, child, baby, quiet, invisible, poor fellow, lounger, bun, greedy, sweet tooth, chistyulya, greedy, hunks, rattlesnake, beast, star , bastard, mumble, know-it-all, slut, nonsense, dodger, asked, hard worker, hard worker, ignoramus, onlooker, drunkard, lapushka, cudgel, imagined, bumpkin, slut, dormouse, sneak, whim, caprice, liar, kopusa, fidget, toastmaster, grunt , hang.

An example of use is clearly shown in fiction: “Baby son came to his father” (Mayakovsky), “There lived an artist Tubik, a musician Guslya and other kids: Toropyzhka, Grumbler, Molchun, Donut, Rasteryayka, two brothers - Avoska and Neboska. And the most famous among them was a baby named Dunno. " (Noses). Perhaps it is the works of Nikolai Nosov that will become a real collection of words with a common gender.

The least words in this group are occupied by neutral ones, such as: right-handed person, left-handed person, colleague, namesake, orphan. The gender of such words is also common.

How to determine gender with a common gender?

The general gender of nouns in the Russian language is determined by the impossibility of confidently indicating the gender in the absence of pronouns and generic endings of adjectives. Words that can be attributed to both male and female gender will be included in this group.

In order to determine the gender of a noun, the accompanying indicative pronouns "this, this, that, that", the endings of the adjectives -th, -th / s are most often used. But if the name of the profession, position or title with the consonant "sergeant, doctor, doctor, director" and others is determined, then the adjective can only be masculine, but the predicate is feminine. "The doctor prescribed the drug" and "The attractive doctor left hospital "," The sergeant gave the order "and" The strict sergeant allowed to rest "," Exemplary teacher this Marina Nikolaevna! " and "An exemplary teacher conducted an open lesson," "A cheerful puppeteer gave a presentation," and "The Old Master sat down on the porch." The predicate does not have to show the gender, then the task of determining the gender is complicated: "The teacher conducts the lesson", "The specialist makes the decision."

Variety of examples

Thanks to the examples, it becomes clear that the most diverse words can be found among nouns of a general kind, such as “daredevil”, “bully”, “bred”, “forester”, “old-timer”, “tail”, “six”, “ignoramus”, “bore”, “beloruchka”, “dud”, “junk”, “naughty girl”, “naughty little girl”. And other words. But they are all united by ambiguity in the definition of gender. Orphan, stylist, marketer, companion, coordinator, curator, Russian scholar, linguist, shirt, foreman, child, judge, kolobrodina, bastard, sore, protégé, roar, sang, muff, bombed, booby, dumbass, sneak, upstart, youngster, fear-man, poor thing, lame-foot, charm, first-grader, high school student, eleven-year-old - all these nouns can be used with respect to both sexes.

The widespread cultural distribution of general nouns in Russian is also interesting. For example, they are commonly used in proverbs and sayings:

1. A healthy man is in food, and a cripple is in work.
2. For every coot there is a deceiver.
3. Walking in his youth is modest in old age.
4. A drunkard is like a chicken, wherever he comes, he will bite there.

And in the literature:

1. “So a strange deal took place, after which the tramp and the millionaire broke up, quite happy with each other” (Green).
2. “A good girl, an orphan alone” (Bazhenov).
3. “Your purity, as doctors say, is sterile” (Dubov).
4. “Hillbilly! - What?” “She staggered back” (Shargunov).

There are many such examples in the literature. Determining the general kind of the words listed in the exercise is one of the tasks in the Russian language lesson, which is easy to cope with.

Education

Examples of general nouns. What are general nouns?

The noun is one of the most commonly used parts of speech. Moreover, such words have a genus, of which there are three in Russian: male (dog, house, bow, father), female (goat, cat, room, pear) or medium (village, sky, jam, distance). The gender category refers to the number of permanent attributes of a given part of speech. However, there are a number of exceptions. We offer you to get acquainted with examples of general nouns.

What is gender

• This is a constant sign. So, if the number and case can change (for example, the words “cat” - singular and “cats” - plural), then the genus always remains the same. No matter how many cats are discussed, this word is always feminine.
• In the plural of nouns this category is not expressed. In this case, if necessary, the definition of the word should be put in units. hours
• Words that are not used in the singular (scissors, stretchers) have no gender.

How to determine

The easiest way to determine gender is by substituting pronouns. This is taught at school. For example:

• A table, a house, a wardrobe, a chair - he is mine.
• Dog, door, skirt, geranium - she's mine.
• Butter, milk, plant, composition - it is mine.

Sometimes, over time, a word can change its gender, for example, the word “swan” used to be feminine, now masculine.

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Common gender

We will get acquainted with examples of general nouns and consider what it is. There are a number of words that can be used in relation to a creature of any gender:

• Slut.
• Muddler.
• Crybaby.
• Sneak.
• Quiet.
• A bore.

From the context, it becomes clear what kind of speech it is. For example:

• Tanya was a terrible crybaby and always solved the problem with tears.
• Egor was a terrible crybaby and always solved the problem with tears.

The word "crybaby" is an example of a general noun.

Examples

There are a lot of words that fit the category of "general nouns". Here are some examples of phrases:

• Poor dog - poor Olga.
• Know-it-all Maxim - know-it-all Katerina.
• Podliza (boy, girl).
• Dirty (Vanya, Anya).
• Glutton (cat, dog).

These are words of a general kind. Most often, they have a pronounced emotional coloring, express the speaker's attitude to the subject described by him.

Here are examples of sentences with general nouns:

• The baby son constantly asked many questions.
• Why did Julia often baffle her parents.
• Coot Cyril so often fell into ridiculous situations that laugh at him already tired.
• This man went down in history as a regicide.

It can be seen from the examples that, in their form, such words resemble feminine nouns, the endings a / z indicate this, however, when combined, it is necessary to take into account what kind of words they depend on.

First example

Hard worker Petrov received the award. The word of the general kind "hard worker" characterizes a man, therefore also refers to noun. male. An agreed definition should choose the appropriate: "conscientious, executive hard worker."

Another example

Self-taught Aksenova achieved significant success in research. Here, "self-taught" describes a woman, so the word should be attributed to the female gender, the agreed definition would be: "talented, intelligent, efficient self-taught."

Examples from texts

Here are examples of general nouns from Krylov’s work “Elephant and Pug”:

So crowds of onlookers followed the Elephant.

I can get into big bullies.

Here are two words of a general kind - "onlooker", "bully"; both first declensions, plural.

In the fable "Cat and Cook" there is another example of a noun of a general gender:

Oh you glutton! oh villain! -

Here the cook reproaches Vaska.

Here the word "glutton" of a general kind is used.

Another example is from the fable “The Mirror and the Monkey”:

Of my gossips, there are five or six of them.

And again, before us is an example of a general noun.

How to avoid a mistake

Often, without context, it becomes difficult to identify which gender a general noun refers to. For instance:

• Well, you and upstart!
• You are a loner, you do not know how to work in a team.

Words mean a qualitative characteristic of a person, but do not give an indication of his gender. If we supplement the examples with support words, the meaning will become clear:

• Well, you upstart, Misha!
• Katya, you are a loner, you do not know how to work in a team.

Thanks to supporting words, we understand that in the first example the word “upstart” refers to a boy, therefore it is a masculine noun, and in the second to a girl, therefore his gender is female.

Words of a general kind should be attributed to the masculine gender when they denote the male person, or to the feminine when they denote the female face.

Common mistake

Often, schoolchildren can mistakenly accept lexical units of generic words that designate professions:

• doctor;
• professor;
• geologist;
• archaeologist;
• librarian;
• paleontologist;
• surgeon.

They can apply to both men and women, but their gender is always male: Dr. Ivanova, surgeon Smirnova. If necessary, coordinate the adjective with them, remember that they are combined with the masculine form: the talented surgeon Smirnov. The combination of "talented surgeon Smirnov" would be a mistake.

Most of this vocabulary does not have a parallel feminine form, but sometimes conversations like “doctor Ivanov” or “librarian Savinov” may slip in colloquial speech and are unacceptable in literary speech.

There are also feminine words in Russian that mean the names of persons by profession: typist, ballerina. If it is necessary to identify a male person, descriptive turns come to the rescue: a ballet dancer.

Proper names

As examples of nouns of a general kind, one can also cite proper names - unshakable surnames of both Russian and foreign origin: Sidorenko, Vidnykh, Grodas.

Diminutive forms, which can refer to people of both sexes: Sasha, Shurochka, as well as abbreviated forms of names: Valya, Sasha, have a common gender.

Gender groups

Based on the foregoing material, three groups of names of a general kind can be distinguished:

• Common nouns in their form resembling feminine words, as indicated by the ending of a / s: an orphan, a poor couple, a rogue, a sweet tooth. Most often they have a bright emotional coloring.
• Native abbreviations that apply to both boys and girls: Sanya, Valya, Zhenya.
• Unswerving surnames: Savchenko, Dumas, Sedykh.

General nouns are important to use correctly in speech, but most often native speakers understand the meaning of the statement due to supportive words or based on the general meaning of the dialogue.

Generic nouns are a group of nouns that, depending on the context, can be masculine nouns and feminine nouns.

Among them can be both common nouns and proper nouns.

Examples of common nouns of a general genus: an orphan, a scum, a quiet, an orphan. You can say as unhappy orphanquot ;, and unhappy orphanquot ;.

Examples of proper names of a general kind are the names Sasha, Shura, Zhenya and others, which can be used both in relation to a woman and in relation to a man. This also includes foreign-language surnames ending in a vowel (for example: Morois) and some other surnames (for example, with the ending -YX: Borzykh).

The gender of nouns in Russian is a lexical and grammatical category that directly relates to the totality of the words masculine (TV), feminine (antenna), neuter (sun) and the so-called general genus (crybaby, clever, egoza).

The last group of words includes many classic examples when a noun looks like a feminine word, but can be correlated and semantically aligned with words of various parts of speech that have the forms of any gender.

for example.

• Zabiyaka Petya continually clashed with classmates quot ;.
• Zabiyaka Masha constantly cursed with her neighbors quot ;.
• The bogey-sun no longer allowed the last snow to lie calmly and made deep holes in nm;

Generic nouns are words that, when looked at, cannot be determined to which gender they belong. But we can say this, for example:

In the first context, the word moat used as a masculine noun. And in the second context - as a feminine nounquot ;. Sun depends on the meaning of the sentence and the whole text with a noun of a general kind included:

• Rva Zina cried and cried. Moat - it is moat ;.
• Rva Kostya cried all day long. Moat - he is moat ;.

Some common quotes; universal quotot; proper names (Zhenya, Sasha, Valya, Shura, Sim, Bondarenko, Krutykh, Zherdyay). You can situationally; include a series of words denoting professions (he is a doctor; she is a doctor; he is a janitor, she is a janitor).

But it should be noted that the latest examples (with professions) are far from classical and in many cases erroneous. In the dictionary, the word doctorquot ;, for example, will be indicated with a mark on male affiliation. So it is with the janitor. Therefore, we can only say that such words are sometimes assumed some functions  general nouns, while not being such.

Generic nouns in Russian are nouns that can be used both masculine and feminine, and both grammatically and in meaning are masculine nouns as well as feminine nouns (and also average). For example: clever, well done - these words are general nouns.

In the Russian language, usually nouns belong to one of three genders: masculine (city, youth, apprentice), feminine (matryoshka, girl, nanny) and middle (lake, crossroads, mummies). But among the nouns of the first declension with ending -but  highlight words general kindthat are masculine or feminine, depending on the context:

Confused Tom is always looking for a pen. Confused Kolya asked me for an elastic.

In the first example, the word confused; has a feminine gender, as the feminine name is indicated, in the second it is masculine.

General words traditionally include nouns: an orphan, a crybaby, a sneak, a liar, a slut, a gourmet, a mollusk, a chant, a weirdo, a cramming, a tramp, etc.

The general gender of nouns means that, depending on the neighboring words in a sentence, such nouns can become either masculine or feminine or neuter without changing the spelling.

These words include a number of nouns, for example, crybaby, hard worker, Sasha, Valya, doctor, incognito, ignorant, etc. Thus, such nouns are immediately visible with an unaided look, since it is impossible to say which genus they specifically belong to.



An example of the use of general nouns:



There are many such nouns in the Russian language. Depending on the context in the sentence, they can be either feminine or masculine. And do not be confused by the typically feminine ending or lack thereof in some cases.

Examples from professions: doctor, judge, cook, secretary, team leader, director.

Non-declining surnames and abbreviated names: Sasha, Valya, Zhenya, Belykh, Chernenko, Sizykh.

Emotionally colored nouns that give a certain characteristic of a person: bully, slut, muddler, hard worker, clever, unlucky, nonsense, hacking, rogue, ignoramus.

There are also immutable words, such as: counterpart, incognito, protege.

Noun Examples general kind  In russian language:

sleepyhead, reluctant, badass, well done, smart, smart, slut, sneak, cruel, hard worker, orphan, baby, fidget.

With these words, we can call people of both sexes:

Katyusha sleepyhead. Pavlik sleepyhead.

She is a slut. He is a slut.





There are nouns in the Russian language that are neither male nor female. These are general nouns. Such nouns include, for example, such words as well done, badass, sleepyhead, sweet tooth, ignoramus, ignoramus and others

In Russian there is such an interesting concept as general nouns.

These are nouns that can be both masculine and feminine, depending on what kind of object they are associated with.

These nouns have 1 declension - that is, they end in А and Яquot ;.

They are used to indicate the nature of a creature.

For example, scum, imaginative, chistyulya, etc.

These words can refer to any living creatures whose behavior can be somehow characterized - that is, to people, animals ...



Examples

1) Masha is quiet!

How quiet you are with me! - said the mother to her son.

2) I have a daughter - a crybaby! - complained my friend

Ivan, so it turns out to be a crybaby! - classmates laughed at the boy.

3) Katya, well, you and Sonya! - said mom

Get up, sleepyhead! - the grandmother woke up the grandson.

General nouns in Russian mean those nouns that can be combined equally well with words of both masculine and feminine gender. You could say these are kind of intermediate words. Example: Vanya - Sonya; Tanya is sleepyhead. WORD SLEEP.

Also these are words like a fidget, a quiet man, a scum, a tramp.

A special group among nouns is made up of so-called words of a general kind. Their grammatical peculiarity lies in the fact that the gender of these nouns varies depending on the gender of the person designated by them (and, therefore, the gender of the words matching with them also changes). For example: "- Pyotr Alekseevich sang with us - and what!" (Turg.); and: "Before he could finish, she began to sing another song, and the girls pulled each other" (L.T); "As a child, I was a big roar" (Veres.); and: "It's amazing how much a person can change - a grimy, shaggy roar has become a prominent, intelligent girl" (A. Kozhevn.).

Common words include:

1) own non-declining nouns - foreign names for the vowel (Morua, Depardieu, Savari), foreign names of origin for the consonant (Sagan, Knipovich), as well as Russian, Slavic names on -o (Nesterenko, Durnovo, Zhivago) and on-o / -h (Greyhounds, Sensitive);

2) common non-declining nouns, the vast majority of which are the names of the person as belonging to any nationality (Bantu, Burundi, Herero, Quechua, Mansi, Udege, Khanty, etc.), as well as some names of persons of different thematic groups (vis-a-vis , protege);

3) unofficial proper declined names in -a / -a (Valya, Genya, Zhenya, Lera, Pasha, Sasha, etc.);

4) nominative declined nouns on -a / -i, overwhelmingly characterizing a person by inclination, addiction to something, by any character trait, etc. and peculiar mainly to the oral-colloquial style (badass, molluscum, mumble, ignoramus, nonsense, crybaby, drunkard, haggard, cunning, etc.). They are adjoined by some stylistically neutral words (singing, book-maker, orphan) and a book colleague.

From evaluation words of a general genus (such as a cruel, open, sly), one should distinguish characteristic words such as a raven, a fox, a rag, an ulcer. Their characteristic estimated value arose as a result of metaphorical transfer, and therefore they retain the gender (female) of their direct meaning even when used in relation to a male person. For example: "Yesterday, in this Variety (unprintable words), some kind of viper a magician made a session with gold pieces ..." (M. Bulg.). A number of words on -a are masculine (and not general) nouns: bouncer, bruiser, kidna, tucked, hang, cut, shirt, shirt (as an application: guy shirt), warden, foreman, judge, toastmaster. In some cases, the words belong only to the masculine gender due to the nature of the person’s occupation as requiring a lot of physical strength (bouncer, bruiser) or once or only inherent in a man (grunt, tassel, toastmaster), in others - the tradition of using characteristics only in relation to a man (child, seasoned, hang, shirt), in the third - a grammatical tradition (headman, foreman, judge).

Note. The masculine names always remain the names of professions, positions, ranks, etc. consonant (doctor, geologist, director, sergeant), which are used in relation to persons of both sexes. When naming a position, profession, etc., occupied by a woman, such words dictate their gender (male) to the definitions attached to them (adjectives, participles: "famous geologist", "practicing physician"). The aforesaid can take the form of not only masculine, but also feminine forms (“the doctor prescribed treatment,” “the director is outraged by this statement,” “the cashier was right”). Compare, for example: “- I understand why my editor rejected the script: it was practically impossible to get money for its implementation” (House of Cinema. 1990. May).

General nouns na -a / -y in modern speech often serve as a characteristic of objects or animals, birds, fish, etc. For example: “On a hot afternoon, kneel down, bend over a small tree, and the nostrils will catch the young and delicate smell of pine resin” (M. Shol.); "There are buses, freight taxis, and just taxis, and" private traders ", that is, someone else's personal cars, but most of all business hard workers are cars" (Vl.Sol.); “The grapes begin to ripen, and the gourmets of the bird are busy looking for browned grains” (Seraph.). What is the kind of similar words-characteristics and definitions to them? Since in such uses, nouns of a general kind act as a pictorial personifying means, i.e. they liken an inanimate object or animal to a person, insofar as the grammatical gender of the name of the object (animal) becomes a kind of indicator of "gender". So, used with reference to objects (animals), nouns of a general kind must have definitions in grammatical forms of that kind (male or female) to which the names of the objects characterized by them belong. For example: "There, in a stuffy wheatgrass, in wild curly clover, braids rang, a diligent hard worker was floating over people for a day" (Fad.); “The air conditioner works all night. All day, the tireless workaholic rustles muffled in the corner” (Lit. gaz. 1981. No. 41); "She is a very big sissy, this car" (N.Tih.). If the name of the item refers to the middle genus (little tree), and it does not correspond to the real, biological gender, then the definition of a general noun characterizing such an item should be in the form of a feminine: "The melon tree is a big sissy." This form is dictated by the morphological "appearance" of a general noun (with the ending -a: sissy).

Rakhmanova L.I., Suzdaltseva V.N. Modern Russian language. - M, 1997.