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Universal 1996:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1996:

Original
Note that there are no syntactic systems [of gender assignment] [only semantic, morphological, and phonological systems of gender assignment].
Standardized
Gender cannot be assigned on the basis of syntactic properties of nouns (such as, e.g., that of taking prepositional complements).
Keywords
gender, gender assignment
Domain
inflection, syntax
Type
unconditional
Status
achronic
Quality
absolute
Basis
“over 200 languages” from all over the place
Source
Corbett 1991: 33
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    Assumed reason: “… syntactic specifications on nouns are very limited; nouns do not normally require specifications to indicate which syntactic rules they are subjcect to”.

    1. May 2020

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