A noun class/gender system categorizes nouns for the purposes of grammatical agreement with other constituents in the noun phrase or other inflectional morphology. See the classification wiki page for more information on our definition of noun class/gender. Noun class/gender assignment may be based on one or several factors. This feature focuses on whether the animacy of a noun is one of these factors for a given language. There must be a clear preference for certain nouns to be classified in certain gender categories as a result of their animacy for this feature to be coded 1. That is, animacy must be a relevant factor in the assignment of gender; however it does not need to be an absolute deciding factor or the only relevant factor in gender/class assignment.
Note that while masculine and feminine categories are generally associated with animate referents, a gender system that makes a distinction between these categories is not necessarily sufficient to trigger a 1 here. A gender system in which animacy is a relevant factor will often make a distinction between human or animal referents and non-living referents, and animate status may be extended to culturally important non-living entities (e.g. mythological figures) or objects (e.g. celestial bodies). A human/non-human distinction is sufficient for a 1 code.
Cheyenne (ISO 639-3: chy, Glottolog: chey1247)
All Cheyenne nouns belong to either an animate or inanimate gender class. Animate nouns include semantically animate entities like humans and animals, but also 'sun', 'moon', 'star', 'rock', and certain body part, plant, and clothing item names.
| Animate | Singular Form | Plural Form |
|---|---|---|
| man | hetane | hetaneo'o |
| rabbit | vóhkoehe | vóhkoeheho |
| tomato | henene | heneno |
| Inanimate | Singular Form | Plural Form |
|---|---|---|
| bead | onéhavo'ke | onéhavo'kėstse |
| river | ó'he'e | o'he'ėstse |
| axe | hohkȯxe | hohkȯxehȯtse |
(Leman 2011: 5-7)
Cheyenne is coded 1.
Yuchi (ISO 639-3: yuc, Glottolog: yuch1247)
The noun class/gender system in Yuchi (also spelled Euchee) includes six noun classes (Linn 2000: 371). Three of these are used for inanimate nouns, further categorizing them based on typical position/posture (sitting, standing, lying); the other three are used for animate nouns. With in the set of animate nouns there are distinctions related to masculine and feminine categories of Yuchi community members and another class used for animate referents (humans, animals) who are not members of the Yuchi community. The fact that animate and inanimate nouns are assigned to different classes/genders is sufficient to trigger a 1 for this feature. It is not relevant to this feature that there are distinctions within the animate and inanimate categories rather than a two-way contrast.
Czech (ISO 639-3: ces, Glottolog: czec1258)
The Czech language encodes three primary categories of gender: masculine, feminine, and neuter (personal knowledge). Within the masculine category, however, there is a further distinction between animate and inanimate references that determines the morphological marking of nouns and other elements in the noun phrase. For example, the animate masculine noun muž 'man' requires different case/number markers and agreement markers (e.g. on adnominal property words) than the inanimate masculine noun strom 'tree'. No grammatical distinctions exist to encode animacy within the feminine and neuter classes (e.g. feminine sestra 'sister' and řeka 'river' are used with identical case/number markers and trigger the same agreement patterns on adnominal property words). The fact that animacy is restricted to masculine referents is irrelevant for this feature, since animacy is still clearly a factor in noun class/gender assignment. Czech is coded 1.
Corbett, Greville G. 1991. Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Senft, Gunter. 2000. Systems of nominal classification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leman, Wayne. 2011. A reference grammar of the Cheyenne language. Lulu Press.
Linn, Mary Sarah. 2000. A grammar of Euchee (Yuchi). (Doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas.)
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| 0 | absent | 1667 | |
| 1 | present | 510 | |
| ? | Not known | 204 |
| Name | Glottocode | Family | Macroarea | Contributor | Value | Source | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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