Anomalies in the Noun Class Systems of Niger-Congo: Towards a Typology of the Atypical

Abstract

The paper focuses on minor noun classes and minor genders in Niger-Congo languages, which are usually regarded as anomalies in class systems. It takes into consideration data from 243 languages, and shows that such anomalies are most characteristic for quite specific meanings, namely those traditionally regarded as prototypical meanings of noun classes: ‘person’, ‘thing’, ‘foot’, ‘tree’, ‘eye’, ‘place’, etc. Thus, the particular patterns of class agreement observed, or particular correlations between singular and plural noun classes, often do not represent accidental exceptions, but are better thought of as a kind of marker of noun class paradigmatic semantics.