Gender: gender
| Values: | Fem | F1 | Masc | Neut | Hum | Nhum |
Mehweb gender (class) agreement distinguishes masculine, two feminine and neuter in the singular and human and non-human in the plural. Morphologically singular mass nouns control non-human plural agreement.
The distribution of two feminine markers is roughly between married/old (Fem) and unmarried/young (F1) women.
Verbs and adjectives have gender markers in the prefix position, and not all verbs have this slot. Locative nominal forms and auxiliaries have a suffix slot.
Masc: masculine gender
Examples
- madina-s rasul w-ig-uwe le-w : Madina-DAT Rasul(ABS) M-love:IPF-CVB.IPFV AUX-M “Madina loves Rasul.”
Fem: feminine gender
The marker for feminine -d-r- is identical to non-human plural marker.
Examples
- rasuj-ze b-ah-ur abaj iz-uwe le-r-deš ile : Rasul-INTER(LAT) N-know:PF-AOR mother(ABS) be.sick:IPF-CVB.IPFV AUX-F-NMLZ COMP “Rasul found out that his mother was sick.”
F1: feminine F1 gender
An ‘old’ marker for feminine -r- is preserved to show agreement with nouns denoting unmarried/young (F1) women.
Examples
- rasuj-s madina d-ig-uwe le-r : Rasul+OBL-DAT Madina(ABS) F1-love:IPF-CVB.IPFV AUX-F “Rasul loves Madina.”
Neut: neuter gender
If a clause lacks an absolutive argument, as observed with some types of for- mally transitive verbs, gender agreement on the lexical verb appears as the de- fault singular neuter agreement marker b-. This is also observed with intransitive impersonal predicates.
Examples
- doˤʜi ar-b-ik-ib : snow(ABS) PV-N-fall:PFV-AOR “The snow fell.”
Hum: human plural agreement class
Examples
- nuša ustuj-šu-b ka-b-iʔ-i-ra : we table.OBL-AD-HPL(ESS) PV-HPL-sit:PFV-AOR-EGO “We are sitting near the table.”
Nhum: non-human plural agreement class
Examples
- it-ini mura d-iχ-ib : this-ERG hay NPL-bring:IPFV-IPFT “He was bringing hay.”
References
- Michael Daniel, Nina Dobrushina & Dmitry Ganenkov (eds.), The Mehweb language: Essays on phonology, morphology and syntax, 73–115. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3402060
Gender in other languages: [bej] [bg] [cs] [cy] [dar] [el] [en] [es] [fr] [ga] [grc] [hbo] [it] [myv] [naq] [pal] [ps] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [u] [uk]