Grammatical Gender: A Close Look at Gender Assignment Across Languages

Abstract

This review takes a broad perspective on one of the most fundamental issues for gender research in linguistics: gender assignment (i.e., how different nouns are sorted into different genders). I first build on previous typological research to draw together the main generalizations about gender assignment. I then compare lexical and structural approaches to gender assignment in linguistic theory and argue that a structural approach is likely more successful at explaining gender assignment cross-linguistically.