It’s true, at least in French. Because we “concord” (I’m not sure of the translation there) adjectives with the noun, it means that we can understand which adjectives is linked to which noun on complex sentences. Same with some determiners and articles.
A basic example:
“Un abricot et des pommes juteuses”
(An apricot and some juicy apples)
Because in French adjectives comes after the noun, it could apply to either only the apples, or both fruits. But since apricot is masculine, apple is feminine, and “juteuses” is the feminine version of the adjective, we know it applies only to the apples.
But honestly? This feature is not THAT important imo. And it makes gendered languages so much more difficult to learn, even as a native speakers sometimes I misgender some words I’m not used to use.
And my example doesn’t even work if both fruits are the same gender, so it’s not like it is a critical feature of the language!
Some say gender can distinguish between similar-sounding words and what a pronoun refers to.
It’s true, at least in French. Because we “concord” (I’m not sure of the translation there) adjectives with the noun, it means that we can understand which adjectives is linked to which noun on complex sentences. Same with some determiners and articles.
A basic example: “Un abricot et des pommes juteuses” (An apricot and some juicy apples) Because in French adjectives comes after the noun, it could apply to either only the apples, or both fruits. But since apricot is masculine, apple is feminine, and “juteuses” is the feminine version of the adjective, we know it applies only to the apples.
But honestly? This feature is not THAT important imo. And it makes gendered languages so much more difficult to learn, even as a native speakers sometimes I misgender some words I’m not used to use.
And my example doesn’t even work if both fruits are the same gender, so it’s not like it is a critical feature of the language!