FR: Mon professeur est malade - definite with respect to gender?

[ketexon]

Hi everyone!

I am taking semantics and we are talking (briefly) about phi featurees and it was brought up that the definite pronouns in french presuppose uniqueness of a noun of a specific gender. For example, "La docteure aime les chats" is a valid sentence if there are two doctors in the context where only one identifies as female, whereas "the doctor likes cats" is invalid in the same situation. (However, I personally am unsure if that presupposition comes from the gender of the noun or the determiner)

My question is about whether this also applies to the genitives personal pronouns. In English, in the context that I have 2 professors, saying "My professor is sick" feels like it violates a uniqueness presupposition (though if you have differing opinions, let me know).
In the context where I have two professors where only one identifies as male, does saying "Mon professeur est malade" sound weird, violating the presupposition that "Mon professeur" is unique regardless of gender?

 

[Maître Capello]

It depends.

For female professors, there is nowadays a debate about how to refer to them. Historically, professeur was only masculine (actually gender neutral) and was used to refer to professors of either gender:

Monsieur/Madame le professeur
Mon professeur de français est un homme / une femme.

However, there is a growing tendency in French to feminize names of professions. It is therefore more and more common to hear or read la/ma/etc. professeur, and sometimes even la/ma/etc. professeure.

Let's take different examples:

un voisin, le voisin, mon voisin → always masculine and male
une voisine, la voisine, ma voisine → always feminine and female

However, before a vowel the gender is specified only by the noun (if at all) when the definite article is elided or the possessive is used:

un infirmier → always masculine and male
une infirmière → always feminine and female
l'infirmier, mon infirmier → always masculine and male because of the noun ending but the determiner doesn't carry a gender
l'infirmière, mon infirmière → always feminine and female because of the noun ending but the determiner doesn't carry a gender (although the possessive looks masculine)

If the noun is gender neutral and it starts with a vowel, you cannot tell the gender of the person or it is ambiguous:

un ostéopathe → ambiguous: either masculine and male (modern usage) or gender neutral (historical usage)
l'ostéopathe, mon ostéopathe → unspecified gender as the noun is gender neutral and the determiner doesn't carry a gender either (although the possessive looks masculine)

As you can see, sometimes there is uniqueness and sometimes not.


P.S.

genitives personal pronouns

Note that there is no genitive in French; you should talk about "possessives" instead. Besides, you are actually talking about possessive adjectives, not pronouns.

 

[ketexon]

I think my question was misinterpreted. I'm wondering about the semantics of the determiners in a specific context with multiple individuals of different genders.

In the context where I have 2 neighbors where one is female and one male where both are sick:

The neighbor is sick.

is uninterpretable (it presumes that there is only 1 neighbor),

La voisine est malade.

Is interpretable, since it assumes there is only 1 female neighbor. But is

Ma voisine est malade.

uninterpretable? Does it assume there is 1 female neighbor or one neighbor who is female?

 

[Maître Capello]

When the noun in question is different for males and females, the phrase is always interpretable in the situation you described, regardless of the determiner since you can tell the two individuals apart just based on the noun ending.

le/mon voisin (masculine & male) → interpretable (the/my male neighbor, not the/my female neighbor)​

la/ma voisine (feminine & female) → interpretable (the/my female neighbor, not the/my male neighbor)​

​

l'infirmier, mon infirmier (masculine & male) → interpretable (the/my male nurse, not the/my female nurse)​

l'infirmière, mon infirmière (feminine & female) → interpretable (the/my female nurse, not the/my male nurse)​

When the noun is the same for males and females, the phrase is interpretable only if the noun may carry either gender and it begins with a consonant since the determiner is different for the two genders only in that case.

• Nouns beginning with a consonant:

le/mon collègue (masculine & male) → interpretable​

la/ma collègue (feminine & female) → interpretable​

​

le/mon professeur:​

- old-school: masculine; male or female → uninterpretable​

- modern-style: masculine & male → interpretable since the form for females is different (la/ma professeur)​

la/ma professeur (feminine & female) → interpretable​

​

le/mon témoin (only masculine; male or female) → uninterpretable​

la/ma sentinelle (only feminine; male or female) → uninterpretable​

la/ma vedette (only feminine; male or female) → uninterpretable​

• Nouns beginning with a vowel:

l'élève, mon élève (masculine & male or feminine & female) → uninterpretable​

l'ostéopathe, mon ostéopathe (masculine & male or feminine & female) → uninterpretable​

l'otage, mon otage (only masculine [possibly feminine in modern usage]; male or female) → uninterpretable​

l'agresseur, mon agresseur (only masculine; male or female) → uninterpretable​

However, if you add an attributive adjective or a determining relative clause, this can make some phrases interpretable. For example:

Mon élève est malade. → interpretable only if you have a single pupil​

Mon élève qui vient du Canada est malade. → interpretable only if you have a single Canadian pupil​

Mon élève américain est malade. → interpretable only if you have a single male American pupil​

Mon élève américaine est malade. → interpretable only if you have a single female American pupil​

See also:
FR: mon/ma professeur / ma professeure / ma prof
FR: adjectif possessif devant un nom féminin commençant par une voyelle : ma, ta, sa / mon, ton, son
FR: mon amour / mon chéri / ma chérie - genre

Ma voisine est malade.

uninterpretable? Does it assume there is 1 female neighbor or one neighbor who is female?

The phrase ma voisine – and therefore the whole sentence – is interpretable. It implies you have only a single female neighbor, but you may have any number of male neighbors (none, one, or several ones).

Aside from the gender aspect, this is no different from English:

une voisine = a female neighbor (uninterpretable)
la voisine = the female neighbor (interpretable)
ma voisine = my female neighbor (interpretable)
une de mes voisines = one of my female neighbors (uninterpretable)