gendernumberccase

Gender-number-case is a framing in linguistic typology that describes how some languages classify nouns and related words along three grammatical axes: gender, number, and case. These categories influence agreement of determiners, adjectives, and pronouns, and in many languages also affect verb morphology. The specifics of how GNC is encoded vary widely between languages, with some relying on inflection, others on word order or separate particles.

Gender refers to a class of nouns that determines agreement with other elements in the noun phrase. Systems range from simple binary gender (masculine/feminine) to three-way (masculine, feminine, neuter) or even extensive noun classes in some languages such as Bantu. In many languages, gender does not strictly align with natural sex; it often remains a grammatical property of a noun.

Number marks quantity, typically singular and plural, and sometimes dual or paucal. It governs agreement on articles, adjectives, and verbs in some languages, and can interact with case endings. Case marks the syntactic function of a noun, such as subject, direct object, or possession. Common cases include nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative, though the exact system and endings vary by language. Some languages fuse case with prepositions rather than with endings.

Languages differ in how they combine GNC. German and Russian illustrate rich case and gender systems with strong noun and article agreement; Spanish marks gender and number on nouns and adjectives but lacks inflectional case on nouns themselves. Mandarin Chinese largely lacks grammatical gender and case with minimal morphological marking, using word order and particles to convey meaning. The study of GNC sheds light on typology, morphosyntax, and cross-linguistic variation.