Harvey's Elementary Grammar and Composition · Lesson 49–50 · Part 2: Part II: The parts of speech in full

50. Properties of the noun: gender

Goal: Your child can name the four genders and give the masculine or feminine of common nouns.

⏱ About 25 minutes · 7 steps

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You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • Paper and a pencil (or a slate)

What's in the book

Part II begins. Lesson 49 lists the properties of the noun. Lesson 50 defines gender and its four kinds and three ways of marking it, with nouns to classify and pair, and sentences to write.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Review

    Ask your child to name the parts of speech they learned in Part I. (Noun, verb, adjective, article, participle, pronoun, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection.)

  2. A noun's properties

    Read:

    To the noun belong Gender, Person, Number, and Case.

    SayThese are the noun's properties. Part II goes through each one carefully.

  3. Gender

    Read:

    Gender is a distinction of nouns or pronouns with regard to sex.

    There are four genders: Masculine, Feminine, Common, and Neuter.

    The book's examples: boy (masculine), girl (feminine), parent (common: either), apple (neuter: neither).

  4. Three ways to show it

    The book says masculine and feminine are shown by different words (king, queen), by different endings (count, countess), or by adding a word (hen-sparrow). Give one more example of each together.

  5. Classify and pair

    Tell the gender of some of the book's nouns:

    Cart, Duke, Father, Nephew, Countess

    Then give the opposite gender for some of:

    King, Uncle, Francis, Augusta

  6. Write sentences

    Write sentences following the models:

    John left his book on my desk.

    A beggar frightened me this morning.

  7. Use it today

    The book asks for the gender of the nouns in your reading. Do five nouns from today's reading.

Answers to the book's problems

Gender: cart, neuter; duke, father, nephew, Joseph, masculine; countess, Susan, aunt, madam, empress, administratrix, feminine; poet, milliner, president and baker can be argued either way (in the book's day poet had the feminine poetess, so poet was often called masculine) - accept a reasoned answer. Opposites: queen, aunt, Frances, Augustus, nephew, widower, sister, sorceress, grandmother, countess, male, prophetess, mediatrix, cock-sparrow. For Miss Jones, Master Jones or Mr. Jones.

Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.

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