Gender and Noun Class

[Don Killian]

Dear all,

I have read quite a number of books and articles by this point on this 
subject, but despite everything I haven't been able to come to a 
conclusion on something, so I thought to ask the list for suggestions 
(particularly since some of the authors on the subject are on this list!).

The difference between gender and noun classes seems to be mostly 
tradition rather than actual linguistic differentiations (perhaps noun 
classes are generally viewed to have more categories, but even that 
isn't absolute), and I've run into a terminology problem with a current 
grammatical description I'm working on... mainly on what might be a more 
neutral term incorporating both of these ideas.

Uduk differentiates all nouns into two categories which are for the most 
part arbitrary, both phonologically and semantically (in contrast to 
Corbett's comment: "When we analyse assignment systems of languages from 
different families we find that genders always have a semantic core.")

As Uduk is NOT using semantics as the main criteria for differentiation 
(at least not synchronically), I would like to use a more neutral term 
than gender or noun class to refer to these categories. Each time I have 
used gender or noun class, a number of readers have associated 
biological gender/animacy with the first or Bantu-style noun class 
systems with the second, and it can often end up detracting from my 
focus.  I'd rather avoid any sort of general debate on what a noun 
class/gender system actually is, and instead focus on the actual 
grammatical system of Uduk.

Hence my question to the list.. IS there a more neutral term than noun 
class or gender to refer to grammatical categories of nouns in a 
language?  Agreement class isn't quite adequate because it also doesn't 
necessarily refer to this being a nominal property (and noun agreement 
class is too cumbersome of a term). Nominal category is awkward, 
although possible.

I'm open to further suggestions people have.

Best,

Don


-- 
Don Killian
Researcher in African Linguistics
Department of Modern Languages
PL 24 (Unioninkatu 40)
FI-00014 University of Helsinki
+358 (0)44 5016437