Grammatical gender and classifiers in African languages

Abstract Most African languages have grammatical means for nominal classification. They assign their nouns to a limited number of genders that come in broadly two types, binary versus multiple. Binary gender systems are based on the sex distinction and establish two classes, feminine versus masculine, with an occasional third neuter. Multiple-gender systems have more than three classes with sex usually playing no role as assignment criterion. Other types of nominal classification, for example numeral classifiers, are less frequent and mostly restricted to a subset of nouns, while operating in concurrency to fully fledged gender systems of the multiple type, the classifiers originating in erstwhile nouns that are in the process of undergoing decategorization to various degrees. The cognitive model found to underlie the grammaticalization of numeral classifiers may provide a key to understanding the ultimate origins of the fully fledged gender system of the Niger-Congo type.