In which of the following sentences is the subject of the verb a feminine…
2019
In which of the following sentences is the subject of the verb a feminine gender noun?
Answer: A. All the female members have arrived. — English nouns carry a grammatical gender: masculine (denoting a male being), feminine (denoting a female being), common gender (either sex — words like…
- A.
All the female members have arrived.
- B.
All the young men have arrived.
- C.
All the male members have arrived.
- D.
All the old men have arrived.
Attempted by 113 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
English nouns carry a grammatical gender: masculine (denoting a male being), feminine (denoting a female being), common gender (either sex — words like "member", "teacher", "student"), or neuter (no sex at all). In this kind of classification exercise, the subject noun phrase is treated as the "noun" whose gender is being identified, and it takes that gender from whichever word inside it names the referent’s sex — e.g. "female", "male", "women", "men" — not merely because the sentence could describe a mixed or unspecified group.
Applying it here
"Members" on its own is a common-gender noun — it can refer to men or women alike — so the word modifying it is what actually fixes the gender of each subject phrase:
"female members" — "female" marks the referent as women, giving a feminine-gender subject.
"young men" — "men" is a masculine-gender noun.
"male members" — "male" marks the referent as men, giving a masculine-gender subject.
"old men" — "men" is a masculine-gender noun.
Cross-check
Only one of the four subjects contains a word that specifically denotes women; the other three all carry a masculine marker ("men" or "male"). Both readings agree: the sentence built on "female members" is the one whose subject is a feminine-gender noun.