masculinesingular

masculinesingular

Masculine singular is a grammatical term used in many languages to refer to forms of words that denote a singular entity and belong to the masculine gender. In inflected languages, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and articles often have distinct masculine singular endings or forms that differentiate them from feminine, neuter, dual, and plural counterparts. For example, in Latin the word villa remains unchanged for the masculine singular, while the nominative plural becomes villas. In German, der Tisch is the masculine singular form of "table," whereas die Tische denotes the plural.

The masculine singular form typically distinguishes the main gender category from other gender categories. In languages with a two-gender system, masculinity is often correlated with natural male referents but can also be arbitrary, as seen with words like das Haus in German, which is neuter. In languages with gender agreement, features such as adjective endings must match the masculine singular of the noun they modify. This agreement is a central feature in Indo-European languages, influencing syntactic structure and morphological paradigms.

Usage of masculine singular is standardized in formal grammar descriptions. It is essential for language learners to recognize masculine singular forms to achieve accurate noun-adjective agreement. In corpora, masculine singular often appears in denoting persons or objects that traditionally or conventionally are classified as masculine. It also distinguishes between singular and plural references, preventing ambiguity in discourse.

The concept of masculine singular may vary across languages. Some languages have animacy or masculine categories separate from grammatical gender, but generalization holds that masculine singular marks a singular, masculine-centered grammatical context.