Grammatica - loco

7
Nouns
The Netherlands Nederland tongs de tang*
pants de broek* vegetable(s) de groente* 23
Note that when referring to the lives, noses, hats, coats etc. of more than
one person, Dutch, unlike English, puts such nouns in the singular as each
person has only one:
Die jongens hebben ons (het) leven gered.
Those boys saved our lives.
Ze hebben allemaal hun jas aangetrokken.
They all put on their coats.
7.3
Feminizing masculine agents
Dutch has a variety of endings used to denote the female of certain
professions, nationalities and animals. There are actually very few rules
for their use and on the whole one can best simply learn the feminine
equivalents by heart. The following will, however, serve to illustrate the
endings in question.
Note: There is an ever increasing tendency for the masculine form to be
used even with reference to a female, e.g. Ze is leraar (i.e. lerares) Duits
op een middelbare school in Veghel ‘She is a German teacher at a secondary
school in Veghel’.
7.3.1
-e
(a) This ending is commonly used with foreign words where the masculine
form has a stressed ending as it is of French origin (plural in -n or -s):
studente ‘student’, docente ‘lecturer’, sociologe ‘sociologist’,
telefoniste ‘telephonist’, typiste ‘typist’
(b) Also indigenous words ending in -genoot (plural in -n or -s):
echtgenote ‘spouse’, tijdgenote ‘contemporary’
(c) The female inhabitant of most countries is designated by the
adjective of nationality plus -e (these forms are never used in the
plural, see Appendix 2, section 1, note (a)):
54 23 Also pl. groentes or groenten.