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In linguistics, grammatical gender is a specific form of noun-class system in which the division of noun classes forms an agreement system with another aspect of the language, such as adjectives, articles, or verbs. This system is used in approximately one quarter of the world's languages. In these languages, most or all nouns inherently carry one value of the grammatical category called ''gender'';〔There are different views whether or not pluralia tantum always have a gender: * Wilfried Kürschner (''Grammatisches Kompendium'', 6. edition, 2008, p. 121) for example states that German pluralia tantum do not have a gender. * The Duden (''Duden Grammatik'', 8. edition, p. 152f.) for example states that all German pluralia tanta have a gender, but it can not be determined.〕 the values present in a given language (of which there are usually two or three) are called the ''genders'' of that language. According to one definition: "Genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behaviour of associated words." Common gender divisions include masculine and feminine; masculine, feminine and neuter; or animate and inanimate. In a few languages, the gender assignment of nouns is solely determined by their meaning or attributes, like biological sex,〔Juha Janhunen: ''Grammatical gender from east to west''. In: ''Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 124: Gender in Grammar and Cognition'', Barbara Unterbeck & Matti Rissanen (eds.), Mouton de Gruyter, 1999, p. 689〕 humanness, animacy. However, in most languages, this semantic division is only partially valid, and many nouns may belong to a gender category that contrasts with their meaning (e.g. the word for "manliness" could be of feminine gender).〔It is in Spanish (''hombría, virilidad, masculinidad''), Latin (''virtūs''), German (''Männlichkeit, Virilität''), Polish (''męskość''), Russian (''мужественность – muzhestvennost'') or Hindi (''मर्दानगी – mardânegi''), among others.〕 In this case, the gender assignment can also be influenced by the morphology or phonology of the noun, or in some cases can be apparently arbitrary. Grammatical gender manifests itself when words related to a noun like determiners, pronouns or adjectives change their form (''inflect'') according to the gender of noun they refer to (''agreement''). The parts of speech affected by gender agreement, the circumstances in which it occurs, and the way words are marked for gender vary between languages. Gender inflection may interact with other grammatical categories like number or case. In some languages the declension pattern followed by the noun itself will be different for different genders. Grammatical gender is found in many Indo-European languages (including Latin, Spanish, German, Hindi and Russian, but not Persian, for example), Afro-Asiatic languages (which includes the Semitic and Berber languages, etc.), and in other language families such as Dravidian and Northeast Caucasian, as well as several Australian Aboriginal languages like Dyirbal, and Kalaw Lagaw Ya. Also, most Niger–Congo languages have extensive systems of noun classes, which can be grouped into several grammatical genders. On the other hand, grammatical gender is usually absent from the Altaic, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan, Uralic and most Native American language families. Modern English is not considered to have grammatical gender, although Old English had it, and some remnants of a gender system exist, such as the distinct personal pronouns ''he'', ''she'', and ''it''. ==Overview== In languages with grammatical gender, each noun is assigned to one of the classes called ''genders'', which form a closed set. Most such languages usually have from two to four different genders, but some are attested with up to 20.〔〔(SIL: Glossary of Linguistic Terms: What is grammatical gender? )〕 The division into genders usually correlates to some degree, at least for a certain set of nouns (such as those denoting humans), with some property or properties of the things that particular nouns denote. Such properties include animacy or inanimacy, "humanness" or non-humanness, and biological sex. Few or no nouns can occur in more than one class.〔〔〔 Depending on the language and the word, this assignment might bear some relationship with the meaning of the noun (e.g. "woman" is usually feminine), or may be arbitrary. Gender is considered an inherent quality of nouns, and it affects the forms of other related words, a process called agreement. Nouns may be considered the "triggers" of the process, whereas other words will be the "target" of these changes. These related words can be, depending on the language: determiners, pronouns, numerals, quantifiers, possessives, adjectives, past and passive participles, verbs, adverbs, complementizers, and adpositions. Gender class may be marked on the noun itself, but will also always be marked on other constituents in a noun phrase or sentence. If the noun is explicitly marked, both trigger and target may feature similar alternations.〔 Common systems of gender division include: * masculine–feminine: here nouns that denote specifically male persons (or animals) are normally of masculine gender; those that denote specifically female persons (or animals) are normally of feminine gender; and nouns that denote something that does not have any sex, or do not specify the sex of their referent, have come to belong to one or other of the genders, in a way that may appear arbitrary. Examples of languages with such a system include most of the modern Romance languages, the Baltic languages, the Celtic languages, Hindustani, and the Afroasiatic languages. * masculine–feminine–neuter: this is similar to the masculine–feminine system, except that there is a third available gender, so nouns with sexless or unspecified-sex referents may be either masculine, feminine, or neuter. There are also certain exceptional nouns whose gender does not follow the denoted sex, such as the German ''Mädchen'', meaning "girl", which is neuter. This is because it is actually a diminutive of "Magd" and in German all diminutive forms are neuter. Examples of languages with such a system include later forms of Proto-Indo-European (see below), Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, Romanian, German, and the Slavic languages. * animate–inanimate: here nouns that denote animate things (humans and animals) generally belong to one gender, and those that denote inanimate things to another (although there may be some deviation from that principle). Examples include earlier forms of Proto-Indo-European and the earliest family known to have split off from it, the extinct Anatolian languages (see below). Modern examples include, to some extent, Basque, and Ojibwe. * common–neuter: here a masculine–feminine–neuter system previously existed, but the distinction between masculine and feminine genders has been lost (they have merged into what is called ''common gender''). Thus nouns denoting people are usually of common gender, whereas other nouns may be of either gender. Examples include Danish and Swedish (see Gender in Danish and Swedish), and to some extent Dutch (see Gender in Dutch grammar). The merger of masculine and feminine in these languages can be considered a reversal of the original split in Proto-Indo-European (see below). Other types of division or subdivision may be found in particular languages. These may sometimes be referred to as ''classes'' rather than genders; for some examples, see Noun class. In some of the Slavic languages, for example, within the masculine and sometimes feminine and neuter genders, there is a further division between animate and inanimate nouns – and in Polish, also sometimes between nouns denoting humans and non-humans. (For details, see below.) A human–non-human (or "rational–non-rational") distinction is also found in Dravidian languages. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Grammatical gender」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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