nounclass

Noun class is a grammatical system that groups nouns into categories, or classes, which are marked on the noun and influence agreement with other parts of speech. In many languages, each class has a particular prefix or affix that signals membership, and adjectives, determiners, pronouns, and verbs often agree with the noun’s class.

Noun class systems are most famously associated with Bantu languages, where a single noun may bear a prefix that marks its class. These prefixes trigger concord in adjectives, verbs, demonstratives, and numerals, so the form of related words changes to match the noun class. Some languages have many classes covering broad semantic areas (humans, animals, inanimate objects, substances, abstract concepts), while others have fewer or differently organized systems. The relationship between noun class and meaning can be transparent (humans vs. non-humans) or more fluid.

In practice, a noun class system means that agreement is a pervasive grammatical device, shaping sentence structure and the interpretation of phrases. For example, in Swahili, the noun “mtoto” (child) belongs to class 1/2 and takes a matching determiner and adjective: “mtoto mzuri” (a good child) and “watoto wazuri” (good children). Other parts of the sentence also reflect the class: “Watoto wako” (Your children) uses class concord on the pronoun.

Noun class is cross-linguistic and not identical to grammatical gender. Some languages have explicit class numerals, others use more subtle patterns of agreement.