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This is a canonical question / Esta es una pregunta canónica
Is there any rule that says that feminine nouns that start with "A" are converted to masculine or is it just done for phonetic (ie beauty) reasons?
Does this happen in all Spanish speaking countries?
¿Hay alguna regla que diga que los sustantivos femeninos que empiecen con "A" son convertidos a masculino, o solo se hace por motivos fonéticos o por belleza?
The noun "agua" is feminine (as you can see in the plural form "las aguas"), but starts with a stressed "a". In this case, the preceding article must change for phonetic reasons: la -> el and una -> un.
The same happens with nouns which start with a stressed "ha" (ex: "el hacha"), but not with nouns which start with other vowels (ex: "la isla", "la épica", "la obra", "la uña").
The stress on the starting syllable is fundamental. In the feminine noun "la almohada", the stress is on the second "a", not on the starting one, so the article remains "la". Same for "la harina", whose stress is on the second syllable.
See also: El agua, esta agua, mucha agua, by RAE.
Agua is always feminine, even in singular form. However, to avoid the double 'a' sound in la agua, we use the article el in singular form. In all other respects, agua is still feminine when singular.
For instance, when adding an adjective, you use the feminine form:
the red water => el agua roja
The same is true for other feminine nouns that begin with a stressed 'a'.
Actually it's not a gender reversal but a tradition that survives (inherited from Latin).
The complete rules are intrincate and arbitrary, kind of "well that sounds good to me", full of exceptions and even exceptions to the exceptions (see the variable use with toponyms or the "árbitra" or "árabe" cases). It is used with common names ("El ágata es una piedra preciosa") but not with proper nouns ("Ella ya no es la Ágata que conocí").
It has nothing to do with cacophony. Note:
- El águila ávida se lanzó sobre la presa.
- La ávida águila se lanzó sobre la presa.
Is it more cacophonic the first than the second word just because one is a noun and the other is an adjective? Oh, we all forgot to say that the article change must be used with nouns but not with adjectives.
It's sometimes said that this way it's easier to pronounce. What about this?
—¿Qué es ese papel?
—El alta.—¿Cuál es tu hija?
—La alta.
You will see that you can pronounce both sentences without being damaged (at least permanently).
Ask me and I will answer "let it disappear". At least, the academicians might let it be optional. I think it's good for nothing more than confusing people to make them say:
- Nunca digas «de
este agua no beberé».
- A
It should be:
- Nunca digas «de esta agua no beberé».
- A buena hambre no hay pan duro.
- La nueva aula es más grande.
If a feminine noun begins with a stressed
/a/sound, some* singular articles/determiners:
- la, una, alguna, ninguna
take a masculine form if they occur directly before the noun:
- el, un, algún, ningún
Nominally this affects all words with stressed initial /a/:
| Prefix | Examples |
|---|---|
| "a-" | Asia, acta, agua, ala, alga, alma, alza, ama, ancla, anda, ansa, ansia, ara, arca, arda, aria, arma, arpa, arria, asa, ascua, asna, aspa, asta, aula, aura, aya, ave, arte (m/f) |
| "á-" | África, ácana, áfaca, ágata, ágora, águila, álaga, álala, álgebra, álica, álula, ámpula, áncora, ánfora, ánima, árdea, área, árgana, árgoma, árnica, árula, áspera, ática |
| "ha-" | haba, habla, haca, hacha, hada, halda, hampa, harca, harda, harma, harpa, harria, haya, haza, hambre, haz |
| "há-" | hálara |
With the following exceptions:
| Exceptions | Examples |
|---|---|
| Letters | la a, la hache, la alfa, el/la álef |
| Acronyms | la ASA, la APA etc |
| Proper names | la Ana, la Ángela, la Austria, la Ávila, la Ámsterdam, la Haya etc Continents: el Asia, el África |
| Nominalized adjectives | la alta, la árida etc |
| (Some) fem. nouns with fem. subjects |
la árbitra |
| Common gender nouns with fem. subjects |
la árabe, la ácrata, la alto (singer) |
As the comments on cdlvcdlv's answer show, among native speakers there is a tendency (despite the RAE's prescriptions) to treat words like agua as 'hermaphroditic' - postnomial modifiers are consistently treated as feminine, but prenomial modifiers show considerable fluctuation in gender.
This treatment of agua-like words isn't limited to casual speech, but is also found in educated speakers and formal/academic writing:
¿Con qué derecho se la toma por aquelm asa y no por éstaf?
- Ortega y Gasset, 1983
... los desperfectos que elm abundante agua caídaf provocó en las vías...
- Vuelve, 2007
... nuestrom habla riojanaf actual...
- Martínez Sáenz de Jubera y González Perujo, 1998
The first thing to note is that variation in gender agreement with nouns of this class generally affects determiners and adjectives preceding, but usually not following, the noun. For example, a search of 20th century texts in Corpus del español (Davies n.d.) returns examples such as mismo agua 'same water', propio agua 'own water', mucho agua 'a lot of water', but no examples where a postposed adjective with agua is masculine. Counting both 19th and 20th century examples there are three tokens of buen alma ‘good soul’ in the corpus versus two of buena alma, whereas no tokens are found of alma bueno in comparison to 17 for alma buena. That is, for some speakers some of these nouns variably condition one type of gender agreement with prenominal modifiers and the other type with postnominal modifiers.
The hypothesized reasoning for native speakers internalizing this hermaphroditic treatment of agua-like words is the learning of tokens such as el agua and agua fría (recognising el as a masculine article and not an allomorph of la) and analogy to other such words.
Remember that this is also used for words starting with h followed by an a: 'El hada madrina / Las hadas madrinas'.
The idea as many others have said is to avoid two consecutive a that are (somehow) hard to pronounce and produce a what is called "cacofonía".
Another important issue (a commonly forgotten one) is that the gender of the word does not mean that the designated object has that same gender. This causes discussion as if the correct way is "el abogado", "la abogado" or "la abogada".
'Agua' is feminine by definition (as RAE explains in El agua, esta agua, mucha agua). The article 'el' is used to avoid stressing of two consecutive identical letters (note that this doesn't happen with all nouns that begin with 'a'). And yes, in this case all Spanish-speaking countries do change the article 'la' for 'el' for the previous reason.
'Agua' es femenino por definición (como la RAE explica en El agua, esta agua, mucha agua). El articulo 'el' es usado para prevenir el arrastre de la vocal (esto no ocurre con todos los sustantivos que inician con 'a'). Y sí, en este caso todos los países hablantes del español cambian el articulo 'la' por 'el' por ese mismo motivo.
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