Noun Assignment in Noun Class Systems

In this subsection, how nouns are actually matched with noun classes is described. Nouns are assigned into noun classes based on a number of different criteria. In the following, semantic, morphological, and phonological criteria will be introduced in this order, as well as how these criteria actually work in some languages.

The assignment of nouns to classes is done on a semantic basis in a number of languages. In this case, the class is determined by the meaning of the noun. As an example of the semantic systems of noun classes, Corbett (1991) takes up Dravidian languages, which are spoken primarily in southeast India and northern Sri Lanka (Corbett, 1991, p. 8). Tamil, one of the Dravidian languages, has three classes: (1) god or male human (male rational), (2) goddess or female human (female rational), and (3) other (non-rational) (Corbett, 1991, p. 9). Though there are some exceptions, nouns are basically assigned into these three classes highly consistently.7 _{Not only in Tamil}

but also in other Dravidian languages, nouns are assigned into classes strictly on the basis of semantics (Corbett, 1991, p. 11).

6 _{Niger-Congo languages are found in western, central and southern Africa, and Indo-European} languages are mainly found in Europe and the South Asian sub-continent (Corbett, 2013).

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As another interesting example is Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language. In Dyirbal, there are four classes: (1) bayi: male human beings, animate non-human beings, (2) balan: female human beings, water, fire, fighting, (3) balam: non-flesh food, (4) bala: other things (Dixon, 1982, p. 179). The second category may be well known among linguists since George Lakoff titled his book ‘Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things’ inspired by Dyirbal (Lakoff, 1987, p. 5). In Dyirbal grammar, it is obligatory to assign nouns into one of those four classes as a general rule (Dixon, 1982, p. 163).8

However, since these four categories do not seem to be adequate to cover all nouns, Dixon noted some more supplemental rules in order to understand some exceptional assignments. One of the supplement rules is that even if some noun has a general characteristic X, which usually leads the noun to be assigned into one of the four classes, another characteristic Y of the noun will precede X in the case that Y is related to the belief system or myths of the speakers. For example, speakers of Dyirbal language believe birds to be the spirits of dead human females, so the noun bird is assigned not to (1) bayi: male human beings, animate other than human beings (general characteristic X: an animal bird) but instead to (2) balan: female human beings, water, fire, fighting (belief or myth-related characteristic Y) (Dixon, 1982, p. 180). Thus, nouns are assigned by applying both the general and supplemental rules in Dyirbal. Dixon reports that there are still some nouns whose assignment cannot be explained clearly by these rules. He concedes that this is probably due to his own lack of knowledge about Dyirbal myths and beliefs (Dixon, 1982, p. 183). Accordingly, speakers need to have a certain amount of historical and cultural knowledge to assign all nouns properly. This presumption would probably be true for Dyirbal learners from outside of the community. However, for people who learn Dyirbal within the community, particularly for those who acquire Dyirbal as their first language, they

8 _{A noun may not be accompanied by a noun marker when the noun is in ablative, allative, or locative} form (Dixon, 1982, p. 163).

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probably pick up the usage of those four classes naturally without being consciously aware of the related system.

The focus now moves to the second of three factors used to classify nouns into classes: morphological criteria. Strictly speaking, a morphological system cannot serve as a sole rule by itself to assign nouns into classes. It is claimed that there are always semantic cores, and morphological factors work only supplementally or in an overlapping way (Corbett, 1991, p. 34; Corbett & Fedden, 2016). In Russian (an East Slavonic language), for example, sex-differential nouns are assigned into masculine and feminine as a basic rule (Corbett, 1991, p. 34). For instance, ‘uncle’ is masculine and ‘lioness’ is feminine. The remainder of nouns are generally assigned by their declensional type. In addition to this, Corbett claims that a couple more sub-rules are needed, since not all nouns are declinable. He states three sub-rules: (1) for acronyms, the class is determined by the head noun by following the morphological rule, (2) nouns denoting animates are masculine, and (3) others are neuter (Corbett, 1991, p. 41). While Russian employs only a couple of different criteria, some languages such as Bantu languages, which are mainly spoken in the southern half of Africa, show more complexity. Bantu languages usually have several classes, for instance, Swahili employs no less than eighteen classes (Corbett, 1991, p. 46).9 _{Corbett makes a claim}

that there are three semantic rules and six morphological rules to assign nouns in Swahili (Corbett, 1991, p. 46).10

The third and final criterion for classifying nouns is phonological assignment. Regarding this criteria, it should be first noted that no language in the world is considered to assign nouns solely by phonological principals (Aikhenvald, 2000, p.

9 _{This number includes three locatives, which are different from lexical genders (Corbett, 1991, p. 46).} The number of noun classes identified in Swahili can vary depending on the criteria used for defining the classes (Contini-Morava, 1994).

10 _{‘5/6’ is a traditional convention used by modern Bantu scholars, which means 5 in the singular and} 6 in the plural in the class (Corbett, 1991, p. 46).

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25). In order to observe phonological assignment, Qafar (an East Cushitic language which is spoken in north-eastern Ethiopia and Djibouti) is a good example (Corbett, 1991, p. 51). In Qafar, there are only two classes: masculine and feminine. Nouns are first assigned according to biological gender, namely, male humans and male sex- differentiable animals are masculine, and female humans and female sex-differentiable animals are feminine. However, it is obvious that this rule does not cover a lot of nouns, and so phonological criteria are employed. In this system, nouns whose citation form ends in an accented vowel are feminine and others are all masculine (Corbett, 1991, p. 51).

This subsection has taken a general view of how nouns are assigned into classes in noun class systems. Overall, nouns are assigned on the basis of semantic, morphological, and phonological features, or a combination of these. Among these criteria, semantics seems to precede other criteria in general as well as in combination types. In addition to these features, it appears that in order to assign nouns into classes, the speaker needs to have a certain amount of knowledge about not only the language itself but in some cases the cultural background as well. In the following subsection, noun classes in Indo-European languages (‘grammatical genders’), for which it has been traditionally argued that there are no clear rules for assigning nouns, are particularly focused on.