Knowra Noun class Noun class A grammatical system that groups nouns into categories and marks those categories through agreement on related words, such as adjectives, verbs, or pronouns.
Agreement (linguistics) : A grammatical relationship in which one word changes form to match features of another. Agreement is the main way noun classes become visible beyond the noun itself.
Noun : A part of speech that typically names a person, place, thing, or idea. Noun classes organize nouns rather than assigning categories to every word equally.
Bantu languages : A large branch of the Niger-Congo language family spoken across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Many Bantu languages have extensive noun-class inventories with agreement across phrases and clauses.
Classifier (linguistics) : A morpheme or word used to classify a noun in certain grammatical or counting constructions. Classifiers typically appear in restricted constructions, unlike systems with pervasive noun-class agreement.
Noun class prefix : A bound morpheme attached to a noun that marks its class in languages with prefixal class systems. In many Bantu languages, prefixes identify a noun’s class and help determine agreement.
Morpheme : The smallest linguistic unit that carries meaning or grammatical function. Class prefixes and other class markers are morphemes attached to or associated with nouns.
Swahili grammar : The system of sounds, words, and sentence structure used in the Swahili language. Swahili provides a widely studied example of class prefixes and class-based agreement.
Grammatical gender : A grammatical classification system that assigns nouns to genders and can trigger agreement on related words. Gender is often treated as a narrower type of noun class, especially when categories are few.
Concord (linguistics) : The matching of grammatical features across words in a phrase or clause. Concord names the agreement patterns through which class membership spreads across a sentence.
Grammatical feature : A formal property of a word, such as number, person, or gender, that can affect its grammatical behavior. Class membership functions as a grammatical feature that agreement can copy.
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