From the screens of TVs, a stream of information falls upon us, and with it the “favorite” advertisement. We often ignore it, however, we pay attention to some stories: they hurt us with something, probably childhood memories are associated with them, for example, when our mother cooked us cocoa in the morning ... And as adults, many of us drink with pleasure in the morning a cup of cocoa, and in the evening they finish their day ... And by the way, "her" or "him"? This drink has become familiar to us, however, if you look at it from the point of view of the Russian language, then what do we know about the origin of its name? It appeared in Russia in the middle of the 17th century and immediately gained popularity, but many don’t even know what kind of word “cocoa” is: some people think that it’s masculine, while others think that “cocoa” refers to the middle gender. Who is right?
History reference
Cocoa fruits grow on a tree belonging to the genus Theobroma from the family of the Malvaceae.
In South America, as in Mexico, residents have long known the taste of chocolate fruits. Hard harvesting paid off at the high price of cocoa beans. By the way, in translation from the ancient Greek Theobrom it means "food of the gods": this is how the classifier Karl Linney evaluated the properties of this plant.
The word cacao has Aztec roots, and the ancient Aztecs, in turn, borrowed the name of the Mayan chocolate fruit, and they heard about cocoa, according to some reports, from the Olmec tribe. So the chain of origin of the word, which seems familiar to us, is quite long and goes back centuries.
Guest from Europe
The Germans brought the word “cocoa” to Russia, and the French say it was from other sources. Be that as it may, this word is firmly rooted in the Russian language, as is the drink. And the tree on which the fruits grow was called chocolate.
In literary works of different times, one can often find mention of a cocoa drink in a different context. In particular, the words “powder” or “grains”, “milk”, “drink”, and also “wood”, and, of course, “butter” are often used together with the word “cocoa”.
In connection with the formation of phrases, as well as the need to combine adjectives or verbs with this word, the question arises: "What kind of word is" cocoa "?". In order to determine this, we first find out his belonging to part of speech.
Definition of a part of speech
So, the word “cocoa” answers the question “what?”, Which means it belongs to the noun and belongs to the category of inanimate objects.
Phonetic analysis of the word is very simple: it has only one part - the root, which is equal to the whole word "cocoa".
When declensing this word from cases, it turns out that it does not change its form, and, therefore, is an indeclinable noun.
It remains to clarify the gender of the noun "cocoa". We approach the issue thoroughly.
Gender in Russian
Four kinds are known in the Russian language: male, female, middle and general. In order to determine what kind of noun "cocoa" is, you must first apply a general rule for all words: put it in the singular. However, the word "cocoa" will not make any changes.
The algorithm for determining the gender of the noun "cocoa", as for other nouns, is given below:
- First, we add the possessive pronoun "mine" to the singular form of the determined noun. As a result, we get "my cocoa." For comparison, consider examples with other objects: my daughter, my door - feminine nouns; my desk, my journal, my closet are masculine nouns; my composition, my apple; my singing is of the middle gender.
- Secondly, for nouns related to people, the definition of gender follows from gender, but this paragraph does not apply to the word "cocoa".
- Thirdly, to determine the gender of a noun, it, regardless of animation or inanimate life, is considered only in the singular. Therefore, the word "cocoa" that interests us is of a secondary kind.
- It should be remembered that the concepts available in the Russian language that do not have a singular, such as shorts, tights, creches, etc., have no category of gender.
Immutable nouns in Russian
To clarify the question of the gender of the noun "cocoa" we turn to the topic of immutable nouns. There are a lot of them in Russian, and most of them are borrowed. The following rules apply to them:
- Immutable nouns related to people have a gender corresponding to the gender of the subject: sophisticated mademoiselle, strict madame.
- Nouns used as the names of a profession or occupation belong to the masculine gender, despite the existing ending characteristic of the middle gender: experienced sommelier.
- If nouns that define a profession and have no endings are related to female subjects, they nevertheless belong to the male gender: surgeon, director, agronomist.
- Nouns that remain unchanged in the process of declension, which are the names of representatives of the fauna, are also considered masculine nouns. Moreover, if we are talking about female animals, then nouns are presented as feminine in combination with other parts of speech: pink flamingo; flamingos walked around the lake; bright cockatoo.
- The exceptions are the words: tsetse, or fly; Iwashi, or fish, are feminine words.
- Nouns that are objects of inanimate nature, which do not change during the declension, belong to the middle family: the old piano, cracked pince-nez, sweet cocoa. Thus, the genus noun "cocoa" should be considered average.
- There are exceptions to this clause regarding the words: penalty and sirocco, considered masculine; on the contrary, the words avenue and salami belong to the female genus.
- The immutable noun "coffee", over which there have been disputes for many years, is considered to be masculine; "cocoa" is, despite the similarity of characteristics, attributed to the middle family.
About constancy
A noun strives for constancy: if the subject or object belongs to a certain genus, then this is forever.
The debate about what kind of "cocoa": male or secondary - is over. So now, enjoying a fragrant drink, you can say: "What a delicious cocoa!"