ABSTRACT
Most nouns end in a vowel, -a,-u, or -e (raised to -i in Campidanese). In the first two cases the vowel gives a fairly reliable indication of the gender of the noun. Nouns ending in -a are almost all feminine whereas those in -u are predominantly masculine: fémina (f.) ‘woman’, mesa (f.) ‘table’, rosa (f.) ‘rose’, annu (m.) ‘year’, prattu (m.) ‘plate’, vinu (т.) ‘wine’. However, the ending -e provides no clue as to gender: frate (m.) ‘brother’, fröre (т.) ‘flower’, ómine (т.) ‘man’, dente (f.) ‘tooth’, die (f.) ‘day’, nue (f.) ‘cloud’, sorre (f.) ‘sister’.
