Grammatical Gender - Definition

Definition

Genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behaviour of associated words.

“ ” Charles Hockett

In languages with grammatical gender, each noun assigned to a class called "gender". The different classes form a closed set. Most languages usually have from 2 to 4 different genders, but some are attested with up to 20. Common divisions include:

  • masculine / feminine
  • masculine / feminine / neuter
  • animate / inanimate
  • human / non-human
  • human / animal / inanimate
  • male / other

Few or no nouns can occur in more than one class. Depending on the language and the word, this assignation might bear some relationship with the meaning of the noun (e.g. "woman" is usually feminine), or may be arbitrary.

Gender is considered an inherent quality of nouns, and it affects the forms of other related words, a process called agreement. Nouns may be considered the "triggers" of the process, while other words will be the "target" of these changes.

These related words can be, depending on the language: determiners, pronouns, numerals, quantifiers, possessives, adjectives, past and passive participles, verbs, adverbs, complementizers, and adpositions. Gender class may be marked on the noun itself, but will also always be marked on other constituents in a noun phrase or sentence. If the noun is explicitly marked, both trigger and target may feature similar alternations.

Read more about this topic:  Grammatical Gender

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