gender of adjectives

Heather H.A2Kwiziq community member

gender of adjectives

En 1783, les frères Montgolfier ont créé ce moyen de transport atypique et insolite et ils lui ont donné leur nom !


Why are the adjectives feminine when transport is masculine?

Asked 8 months ago
Maarten K.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor Correct answer

Heather, 

both adjectives ‘ insolite ‘ and ‘ atypique ‘ are spelled identically in masculine and feminine form, so are in masculine form here.

The terminal ‘ e ‘ is an inherent part of the adjectives here, and not ‘gender-defining’. 

As an additional comment, I would say the adjectival agreement is with the expression ‘ (le) moyen de transport ‘ which is masculine, rather than with ‘transport’ per se, even though in this case it does not affect the agreement needed.

See the link to wordreference which confirms that ‘moyen de transport’,  ‘moyen d’expression’ and ‘moyen de contraception’, and many other examples, are all masculine ‘compound noun expressions’.  

For the latter 2 examples, any adjectival agreement would be masculine, not feminine eg ‘ les moyens d’expressions très différents ‘, even though as stand-alone nouns, expression and contraception are feminine.

Compare this to the compound expressions in the link to compound nouns deriving from a feminine noun, (la ) vie de qqc ‘ eg ‘la vie de chien’, all being feminine.

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/atypique 

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/insolite 

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/moyen 

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/vie?start=200

 https://www.wordreference.com/fren/expression

 https://www.wordreference.com/fren/contraception

gender of adjectives

En 1783, les frères Montgolfier ont créé ce moyen de transport atypique et insolite et ils lui ont donné leur nom !


Why are the adjectives feminine when transport is masculine?

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