New approaches to the typology of gender

Nominal classification is a fascinating topic, with canonical gender serving as an ideal to measure various gender systems in languages. Developing a three criteria based canonical gender principle.

Abstract

Nominal classification remains a fascinating topic. To make further progress in this area we need greater clarity of definition and analysis. We use canonical gender as an ideal against which we can measure the great variety of the actual gender systems we find in the languages of the world. Starting from previous work on canonical morphosyntactic features, particularly on how they intersect with canonical parts of speech, we establish the distinctiveness of gender, reflected in the Canonical Gender Principle: In a canonical gender system, each noun has a single gender value. We develop three criteria associated with this principle, which together ensure that canonically a noun has exactly one gender value. We give examples of non-canonicity for each criterion, and this establishes a substantial typological space, which accommodates the various non-canonical gender systems in the languages featured in this volume.

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