A Frequency-based Analysis of the Norms for Spanish Noun Gender

The teaching of the Spanish noun gender system to students is based on a set of generalizations that the last phoneme, or sound, of a noun is an excellent predictor of the gender of that noun (Bull 1965). These generalized norms have been refined over the years and can be found in most textbooks. The norms are taught to students who then apply them to nouns and can deduce the gender of the noun. However, students still have difficulty determining the gender of nouns accurately, a fact which may indicate that the rules for gender assignment are inadequate. This article examines the pros and cons of the current set of generalizations and applies them to a set of highly frequent Spanish nouns. As a result of this analysis, a newly refined set of generalizations based on frequent nouns is proposed. These new generalizations may be easier for students to learn and correctly apply to deduce the gender of Spanish nouns.