354 The Loom of Language Rules of tins sort are not absolutely reliable Even if a noun is mascu- line or feminine in Latin, its descendant in a daughter dialect does not invariably fall into the same gender-class Consequently knowledge of one Romance language is not an infallible guide to gender in another This is illustrated by the following list. LATIN FRENCH SPANISH ITALIAN fiore (floviej^m fieur, f flor,f fiore, m lepore (hai e)9 m hevre, m liebre, f lepre, f limite (hmif), m limite, f limite, m lumte, m pulvere (dusi)> m poudre, f polvo, m polvere, f sanguine (blood)) m sang, m sangre, f sangue, m aestate (summer)^ f et6ğrn estio, m estate, f dente (tooth\ m dent, f diente, m dente, m fronte (foiehead^ f front* m frente, f fronte, f. arte (a,rt)y f art, m arte, m or f artey f A single common exception to the rule that Italian and Spanish -0 nouns are masculine is the word for hand, which is feminine Thus the white hand is la mono Uanca (Span), la mono hanca (Italian). Italian nouns of the minority class51 e those which do not have the singular terminals -o or -a end in -E and are either masculine or feminine. There is an -E class in Spanish and Portuguese, and an even larger group of Spanish and Portuguese nouns which end in a consonant Spanish nouns which have the singular endings -D or -Z are usually feminine Spaniards make a peculiar distinction between animate and inanimate objects When the direct object is a person or its pronoun equivalent (de- monstrative, interrogative, relative, and indefinite), it must be preceded by the preposition a, e g veo a Don Juan (I see Don Juan), no he v^sto a nadie (I have seen nobody), but veo la plaza (I see the square) The preposition 'a may also be used when the object is a farruliar animal, e g llama al perroy he calls the dog We omit it after tener (have) and querer (want), but not when tener means hold or querei means love, e g tengo a mi amiga (I am holding my friend) LATIN ITALIAN SPANISH PORTUGUESE FRENCH ENGLISH OVO uovo huevo OVO oeuf egg vino vino vino vmho vin wine anno anno ano ano an year aqua acqua agua agua eau water porta porta puerta porta porte door bucca bocca boca boca bouche mouth