WORD CLASS: NOUNS. GENERALITIES

1. Nouns in Catalan possess inflection. Stems (lexemes) may be followed by certain morphemes adding linguistic information related to:

- Gender: masculine and feminine

- Number: singular and plural

- Case: Catalan, like most Romance languages, does not possess morphological cases. Only personal pronouns know two cases of inflection.

- Appreciation: it includes augmentatives and diminutives.

cas–	­–es		houses
Lexeme	Number Morpheme
candidat	–a		candidate
Lexeme	Gender Morpheme
cotx–	–ass–	–os	big cars
Lexeme	Appreciative Morpheme	Number Morpheme

2. Gender: Gender may be related to sex when dealing with animals and people; in the rest of the cases, gender is completely arbitrary.

Masculine is a non-marked gender, which means that when dealing with people, masculine refer to both males and females:

els treballadors	workers
uns amics	some friends

Catalan may undergo inflections related to gender in many cases. Nouns may be classified into these groups depending on their behaviour regarding gender:

1) Nouns admitting two genders (gender in this case is related to sex), which are to be considered he/she–nouns in English:

          1.1) Gender is obtained through inflection:

amic > amiga	friend (masculine and feminine)
mestre > mestra	teacher; master

1.2) Gender is obtained through the change of the whole lexeme or with an important change thereof:

rei > reina	king > queen
cavall > egua	horse > mare
toro > vaca	bull > horse

1.3) Both genders have no reflection on the endings. In such case, determiners are the only way to distinguish gender (and sex):

especialista	specialist
fiscal	attorney
àrbitre	referee

2) Nouns with no gender inflection (there is no relationship between gender and sex), which are to be considered it–nouns in English:

lluna (fem.)	moon
sol (masc.)	sun

Rules regarding Feminine formation can be seen here.

3. As for Number, most Catalan nouns may take either singular or plural forms, except in a few cases.

3.1. Some nouns don’t usually take plural. These are mainly abstract and uncountable nouns.

m’agrada l’arròs	I like rice
crec en la justícia	I believe in Justice

3.2. In some cases, some uncountable nouns may take a plural form. When referring to drinks, for example:

tres cerveses, sisplau	three beers, please
dues aigües minerals, sisplau	two mineral waters, please

3.3. Or when referring to a whole ensemble (it may be even be emphatic):

l’aigua de la Mediterrània	the water from the Mediterranean
les tristeses dels amics	all my friends’ sadness

3.4. In some cases, the singular refers to a stuff, while the plural refers to pieces made out of that stuff:

El ferro és un material dur	Iron is a hard stuff
Aquests ferros ja es poden tirar	These [pieces/bars] of iron are no longer good for nothing

3.5. Some nouns are never to be found in plural, not even metaphorically, such as:

nord	North
català (la llengua)	Catalan (the language)
solidaritat	solidarity

Those are known as singularia tantum.

3.6. Some nouns are exclusively used in plural (they are usually known as pluralia tantum):

les ulleres	the looking-glasses (spectacles)
les tisores	the scissors
els afores	the outskirts
els diners	the money

As for the rules to make the plural, see here.

4. Appreciation refers to the likelihood to express the speaker’s feelings or judgements concerning nouns. Not all languages have linguistic tools to express these items.

4.1. Diminutives tend to express a kind of tenderness, usually with a positive, affective vision; so una platgeta is not just a little beach, but a beach on which the speaker projects positive remembrances or which (s)he really likes.

4.2. Augmentatives may certainly refer to ‘big sizes’, but they may also collect a large amount of psychological assessment, not always positive. It may refer exclusively to the size when saying un gossàs (= a big dog), but it may express admiration, or even envy, when saying un cotxàs (= a big car). Context will turn up necessary in order to understand the use of these procedures.

4.3. French, as well as English, lacks both diminutives and augmentatives, therefore both languages can just use adjectives to express a similar concept:

ami > petit ami	friend > little friend
livre > grand livre	book > big book

4.4. Both Czech and German only possess diminutives:

slon > sloneček	lion > little lion
> velký slon	> big lion

Löwe > Löwchen	lion > little lion
> großer Löwe	> big lion

4.5. instead, Catalan –like Spanish, Portuguese or Italian– possesses both diminutives and augmentatives

una noia > una noieta	a girl > a little girl (diminutive)
un gat > un gatàs	a cat > a big cat

 As for the procedures to make up augmentatives and diminutives, see here.