Today I came across a German noun that does not seem to have a gender. That’s the word Jura translated as law. Usage example:
In Syrien hat sie Jura und Inneneinrichtung studiert.
Are there any (other) German nouns that do not have a gender?
Today I came across a German noun that does not seem to have a gender. That’s the word Jura translated as law. Usage example:
In Syrien hat sie Jura und Inneneinrichtung studiert.
Are there any (other) German nouns that do not have a gender?
Are there any (other) German nouns that do not have a gender?
Yes. There are nouns in German without articles or with Nullartikel. I have found German nouns without an article.
The only one I can think of right now is Gassi. I think that counts right?
All German nouns have an inherent gender. The usual criteria for determining whether or not a word is a noun in German grammar goes something like that: A word is a noun
(Note that there are also non-grammatical definitions of what a noun is, e.g. a word is a noun if it is written with a capital letter according in Duden.)
The case of «Jura» is a bit special because it is used almost exclusively as a collective noun without article, and because it is a Latin plural that may be perceived by many as a singular nowadays (the singular is «Jus»). Therefore, its gender may be hard to determine unless you make a little effort for finding clear cases, e.g. the following:
«Ich studiere Jura.» — «Welche Jura interessieren dich denn am meisten?» — «Die Jura von Professor Meeseeks.»
If you say «welche Jura interessieren dich» (which is what I would say), then you are using «Jura» as a plural. Obviously, this does not reveal the gender as the gender can only be seen in the singular. If «Jura» is used as a plural, then the singular would be «Jus», and the corresponding gender-revealing question would be «welches Jus interessiert dich» – which shows that it is a neutrum.
Some might find the below more acceptable:
«Ich studiere Jura.» — «Welches Jura interessiert dich denn am meisten?» — «Das Jura von Professor Meeseeks.»
If you say «welches Jura interessiert dich» instead, then you are using «Jura» as a neutrum singular.
Some speakers may not have any intuition about the gender of «Jura». They may try to avoid sentences like the above, using circumlocutions like «Jura-Studium» instead. For these speakers, the word does not meet any of the three criteria for nouns mentioned above. Consequently, you can argue that grammatically speaking, «Jura» is developping into a particle for such speakers, similar to «Auto» in the expression «ich fahre Auto» or «fort» in the expression «ich gehe fort».