Why Do Some Spanish Feminine Nouns Take Masculine Articles in the Singular?

[DonRocks]

Do any Spanish speakers know why certain feminine nouns (e.g., "agua") take a masculine article in the singular case?

The only thing I can think of (at least in this case) is for clarity of sound - for example, "el agua" sounds perfectly clear, whereas "la agua" is more difficult to understand. If this is the case, why not simply use an apostophe, e.g., "l'agua?"

Is clarity of sound the reason?

If so, there's a similar thing in French to avoid connecting two potentially confusing-sounding vowels. For example, <<Il y a>> (those brackets are the French equivalent of quotation marks) means "There is." However, if you make it a question, you insert a "-t-" to avoid a confusing-sounding phrase: in order to say, "Is there?" you say <<Y a-t-il?>> as opposed to the incorrect <<Y a il?>> which is more difficult for the ears to understand - the "-t-" adds nothing whatsoever except clarity of sound. Granted, this has nothing to do with gender, but it might serve a similar purpose.

[bettyjoan]

Do any Spanish speakers know why certain feminine nouns (e.g., "agua") take a masculine article in the singular case?

The only thing I can think of (at least in this case) is for clarity of sound - for example, "el agua" sounds perfectly clear, whereas "la agua" is more difficult to understand. If this is the case, why not simply use an apostophe, e.g., "l'agua?"

Is clarity of sound the reason?

If so, there's a similar thing in French to avoid connecting two potentially confusing-sounding vowels. For example, <<Il y a>> (those brackets are the French equivalent of quotation marks) means "There is." However, if you make it a question, you insert a "-t-" to avoid a confusing-sounding phrase: in order to say, "Is there?" you say <<Y a-t-il?>> as opposed to the incorrect <<Y a il?>> which is more difficult for the ears to understand - the "-t-" adds nothing whatsoever except clarity of sound. Granted, this has nothing to do with gender, but it might serve a similar purpose.

The short answer is yes, the articles can shift based on awkwardness of sound.  "El agua" is the perfect example of when this happens.  Not sure why Spanish doesn't use the apostrophe like the French.

Articles can also shift for other reasons - for example, abbreviations and words in which the article changes the meaning.  There aren't TONS of words like this in Spanish, so after a while, you just sort of know which ones they are.  Or, you're a dork like me and study Spanish linguistics.