Why is meat la carne and not el carne?
Why is meat "la carne" and not "el carne"?
6 Answers
Why is meat "la carne" and not "el carne"?
Because it is a feminine noun.
The obvious implication of your question is, "Why is the word carne feminine rather than masculine?" Should this be taken to suggest that you believe that perhaps there is some sort of underlying logic dictating the classification of nouns into the masculine and feminine genders?
To be sure, there are certain patterns that can be observed regarding the relative prevalence of certain inflectional ending in terms of which gender a particular noun might belong to, but for the most part, such considerations are fairly imprecise in their predictive powers. Generally, the gender group to which a particular noun belongs–regardless of its ending–is typically a byproduct of factors that are more historical than logical, and seeking to find a unifying logic behind gender classification is likely to be infintesimally more complex than simply familiarizing oneself with the gender of each noun as it is encountered.
In regards to this specific word, carne, its classification as a feminine noun can be traced at least as far back as the third declension Latin noun, car?, from which it was derived. Specifically, the noun car? was grouped as a feminine noun in Latin, and this tradition was maintained as the word was passed into Spanish.
To confuse the gringos!!!
Because Spanish is well known to be a totally logical and easy to understand language, following simple basic rules.
There is a grammar page in a book Barron's E-Z Spanish Grammar and it gives these explanations for nouns, masc,- nouns that end in -ma with Greek origin are masculine: el aroma el asma el clima el problema el tema etc
nouns that end in -a -d -is- z are not feminine: el dia el mapa el planeta el tranvia
el cesped el huesped el ataud el analisis el avestruz (ostrich) el arroz el pez (fish) el lapiz el ajedrez(chess) el altavoz (speaker) el maiz(corn)
I think a little of the noun thing is memorization and internalizing it through usage.
Remember when a noun starts with a vowel like a it uses el even if it is feminine like el agua but las aguas negras.
same reason mano is la mano and not el mano.
The Spanish term for hand, mano, is derived directly from the Latin word manus, itself a fourth declension, feminine noun. As with the word "carne" discussed above, the gender of this noun was conserved in Spanish from the original Latin term.
The phonetic developments leading to each respective ending may have been related to the manner in which the near close vowels ? and ? came to be pronounced in certain varieties of Vulgar Latin. In many cases, the close vowel ? eventually merged with the long vowel ?; whereas, the close vowel ? merged with the long vowel ?.
Examining the accusative forms of each of these Latin nouns, from which each of the respective Spanish forms are purported to have developed, we might be led to the conclusion that the words developed in manner suggestive of an elision (apocope) of the final -s sound in Vulgar Latin of the nominative form:
| Latin | ||
| Nominative | –s dropping | ? ? ? and ? ? ? |
| Manus | Manu | Man? |
| Carnis | Carni | Carn? |
Some authors suggest that the phenomenon of the dropping of the final -s was fairly common in textual examples as far back as classical Latin, indicative of a possible phonetic relationship. However, others have contended that little evidence exists to suggest such a pattern in later Latin, especially of those varieties that were exhibited in Spain. Due to this fact (as well as to other considerations), some authors contend, instead, that the accusative form of the noun is the actual form from which many Spanish nouns were derived. One factor which makes this theory more likely is the fact that the accusative form of Latin nouns, including those described above, typically ended in the nasal consonant -m; moreover, the dropping of the final -m in Vulgar Latin is fairly well documented. If this indeed were the manner in which these words were passed down into Spanish, then a more plausible explanation for their development might be slightly different, as noted below:
Mano
| Latin | ||
| Accusative | -m dropping | ? ? ? |
| Manum | Manu | Man? |
Carne
| Latin | |
| Accusative | -m dropping |
| Carnem | Carne |
same reason mano is la mano and not el mano.
