Explanation
Noun classes need not organise nouns by biological sex. In Bantu languages they may group people, things, abstractions or spatial domains and carry agreement through a clause.
Example
Swahili m-tu ‘person’ forms wa-tu ‘people’; the prefixes mark both number and class. Matching prefixes can recur on modifiers and verbs.
Counterexample
A thematic list such as animals, plants and tools is not a grammatical noun class without systematic agreement.
Distinction
class prefix and agreement chain
Effect on thought and perception
Reveals how a language channels objects into recurring grammatical pathways and continues that ordering across a sentence.
Resonance
Categories appear as distributed relations rather than labels attached only to nouns.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Noun class“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-144-004. ATLAS 251, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-144-004The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. A verified modification date per entry is not yet available. Include your access date for precise references.