La primaria ha votato per la cancelliera.

Questions & Answers about La primaria ha votato per la cancelliera.

La primaria usually means primary school in my experience. How does it mean head physician here?
Primaria here is the feminine noun form of il primario, which means head physician or chief of a hospital department. Historically masculine professions ending in -o simply change to -a for women. You can tell this apart from primary school (which is short for la scuola primaria) by the context.
What is the rule for forming the feminine of chancellor, la cancelliera?
The masculine form is il cancelliere. The rule for professions ending in -iere is to change the ending to -iera for the feminine. This gives us la cancelliera, just like l'infermiere becomes l'infermiera.
Are modern feminine forms like la primaria and la cancelliera widely accepted in Italian now?
Yes, they are highly standard today. While Italy is still in a transitional phase where a few people might still use il primario for a woman, these feminine forms are officially recommended and heavily used in journalism. La cancelliera, for example, became universally accepted in the Italian press when referring to Angela Merkel.
Why doesn't the past participle votato agree with the feminine subject La primaria and become votata?
Because the auxiliary verb here is avere (ha). In the past tense, the past participle only changes its ending to agree with the subject if the auxiliary verb is essere. With avere, the participle stays in the default -o form.

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