linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, polarity of gender is when a

lexical item In lexicography, a lexical item is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain of words (catena (linguistics), catena) that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon (≈ vocabulary). Examples are ''cat'', ''traffic light'', ''take ca ...

takes the opposite

grammatical gender In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...

than expected. The phenomenon is widespread in

Afroasiatic languages The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...

such as Semitic and

Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2 ...

tongues. For example, in Somali, which is a

language, plural nouns usually take the opposite gender of their singular forms.

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

, a

Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by mo ...

, has a consistent polarity-of-gender agreement between nouns and simple numerals. The phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "chiastic concord" or "reverse agreement". For example, in the Hebrew

noun phrase A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently ...

''‘éser banót'', which means "ten girls", the numeral (ten) is masculine whereas the noun (girls) is feminine. Similarly, in the Hebrew noun phrase ''‘asar-á baním'', which means "ten boys", the numeral (ten) is feminine whereas the noun (boys) is masculine. In the latter, the feminine suffix ''-a'' () is added to the numeral עשר (ten) that modifies the masculine noun (boys). However, according to

Ghil'ad Zuckermann Ghil'ad Zuckermann (, ; ) is an Israeli-born language revivalist and linguist who works in contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity. Zuckermann was awarded the Rubinlicht Prize (2023) "for his researc ...

, common usage in

modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

is different in this regard. Following

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

(where there is no difference between a numeral modifying a masculine noun and a numeral modifying a feminine one), in most Israeli idiolects, sociolects and dialects, the numeral-noun agreement system is much simpler, and does ''not'' follow polarity of gender. In common usage (as opposed to the prescribed form by the

Academy of the Hebrew Language The Academy of the Hebrew Language (, ''ha-akademyah la-lashon ha-ivrit'') was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on the Hebrew language in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem of Givat Ram cam ...

), the expressions ''éser banót'' ("ten girls"), and ''éser baním'' ("ten boys"), are both commonly used and grammatical. However, argues Zuckermann, due to massive puristic pressure, Israelis end up with hypercorrect forms such as ''shlósh-et ha-dód-ot'' ("the three aunts"), as opposed to the puristic ''shlósh ha-dod-ót''. The phenomenon happens in Portuguese with the word ''avós'' (grandparents).

References

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