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- "Ένα κορίτσι, μία γυναίκα."
22 Comments
In the nominative case ένας is for the male, μία is for the female and ένα is for the neuter genre.
In this sentence ένα κορίτσι is considered to be neuter and not female genre, although a girl is a female. It's a Greek irregularity ;)
304
Same thing happens in German. "Mädchen", despite meaning "girl", is neuter instead of feminine since most (if not all) nouns ending in "-chen" are neuter.
It's also neuter in Dutch (meisje - a cognate with German Mädchen) and masculine in Irish.
- 424
It's interesting that in my language - Slovak which is a Slavic language, the word for girl "dievča" is also neuter.
It's not an irregularity, it's just that grammar gender it's not the same as human gender.
If you google "Βικιλεξικό"+(insert verb you want to find), you'll find its declension (for the more common ones, at least). It's the Greek Wiktionary.
- 994
Maybe it helps if I also explain why these nouns are neutral in German and Dutch despite describing a feminine object. It is because of the diminutive, which is a marker to make it smaller. In Dutch there is also a form without this marker "de meid" which gets the feminine article. The more common form, however, is "het meisje" which has the neutral form because of describing a "small" girl. Leaving out the diminutive, practically, only happens in expressions like "grote meid" (big girl). In German it would be even rarer to say Mädchen without the diminutive -chen.
This is comparable with the Spanish -ito
Poco
Poquito
I am still new to Greek, but I guess the same applies here.
Well.. why is not use ένα γυναίκα. Is A girl, A woman. Why μία at the second one? Ain't μία for quantity?
Ένα is used with neuter nouns, μία is used with feminine nouns. Κορίτσι is neuter but γυναίκα is feminine.
