Declinación de los sustantivos

[Caramelita]

Originally Posted by Perikles

Ah - ok - I was a bit confused. That "flexión nominal en castellano" is not declension (as you said), but I don't know the English expression, because it's irrelevant in English. It seems to be simply the formation of nouns from a lexeme, including the change from singular to plural. It's that simple.

Yeyy, so I got it right so its the change from singular to plural and from fememino to masculino, right?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Caramelita

Yeyy, so I got it right so its the change from singular to plural and from fememino to masculino, right?

The "flexión nominal en castellano" is, yes.

[wrholt]

Whether or not Spanish nouns inflect for both gender and number, or whether nouns have gender and inflect only for number, or whether they have both gender and number seems to be an area of debate among linguists who study Spanish. On he other hand, teachers of Spanish seem to like the idea that word sets such as "amig(o)(a)(os)(as)" are one word that varies for gender and number because it seems to make learning simpler.

But what about word sets such as "artist(a)(as)", which has one singular form shared by both genders and one plural form shared by both genders? Or word sets such as "ran(a)/(as)" or "sap(o)(os)", each of which has only one gender, although it comes in both singular and plural? What about the word sets "hombre(-/s)/mujer(-/es)): one word with two inflections? Or two words? If "hombre(-/s)" and "mujer(-/es)" are two words rather than one word, then shouldn't "amigo(-/s)" and "amiga(-/s)" be two words? What about words like "persona(-/s)" (always feminine) or "testigo(-/s)" (always masculine)? There is no inflection for gender, only inflection for number. What about non-count nouns like "harina" (flour)? (Actually, it is possible to say "harinas", but this word seems to be equivalent to "tipos/clases de harina" rather than being a plural of "harina".) And how about the nouns that are always plural, such as "tijeras"?

I would argue that for a teacher, the best analysis is the one that makes teaching/learning easier or faster: this may well be the idea that some nouns inflect for both gender and number, other nouns inflect only for number, and other nouns don't inflect at all. For a linguist, the best analysis is the simplest analysis that explains all of the relevant facts in all their gory details, and this may well be either the idea that nouns have gender and inflect for number or that nouns have gender and number and do not inflect at all.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by wrholt

Whether or not Spanish nouns inflect for both gender and number, or whether nouns have gender and inflect only for number, or whether they have both gender and number seems to be an area of debate among linguists who study Spanish. On he other hand, teachers of Spanish seem to like the idea that word sets such as "amig(o)(a)(os)(as)" are one word that varies for gender and number because it seems to make learning simpler.

Yes, I agree that the concept of declination can be varied to make learning simpler. That is all very well if you are learning one language. This does create a problem, however, if you finish up learning several languages, because it is far easier to have a fixed concept of a grammatical expression which is the same across the board, rather than have to re-examine what you understand by these terms for every (Indo-European) language you come across.

To various degrees of depth I am aware of English, German, French, Latin, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Danish and Welsh grammar, as well as Spanish. None of these languages has the idea that nouns decline with gender, so I'm reluctant to see why Spanish should be different. I think it's far easier to say that the lexeme inflects according to gender, which is true for all that list, including Spanish.

It doesn't really matter though, as long as terminology is defined . Which it never is .