Polarity of gender


In linguistics, polarity of gender is when a lexical item takes the opposite grammatical gender than expected. The phenomenon is widespread in Afroasiatic languages such as Semitic and Cushitic tongues. For example, in Somali, which is a Cushitic language, plural nouns usually take the opposite gender of their singular forms.
Hebrew, a Semitic language, had a consistent polarity-of-gender agreement between nouns and numerals. The phenomenon is sometimes referred to as "chiastic concord" or "reverse agreement". For example, in the Hebrew noun phrase עשר בנות ‘éser banót, which means "ten girls", the numeral is masculine whereas the noun is feminine. Similarly, in the Hebrew noun phrase עשרה בנים ‘asar-á baním, which means "ten boys", the numeral is feminine whereas the noun is masculine. In the latter, the feminine suffix -a is added to the numeral עשר that modifies the masculine noun בנים.
However, according to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, common usage in modern Hebrew is different in this regard. Following Yiddish, 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, the expressions עשר בנות éser banót, and עשר בנים éser baním, 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, as opposed to the puristic shlósh ha-dod-ót.