Classification of Nouns

There are several types of nouns in the English language and this can become confusing for young students. Here is an explanation of the eight common types of nouns. There are many types of nouns that can be used in the English language. Children are usually taught that nouns are people, places, things or abstract ideas. There are no fewer than eight ways in which to classify a noun and it is important that homeschooled students and parents understand each of them.

Eight Types of Nouns

1. Proper Nouns: These are nouns that refer to very specific people, places or things. The rule of thumb is that these nouns should be capitalized. This type of noun applies to places such as Illinois, names of people such as Jessica and the names of places or institutions like Queen's University. 2. Common Nouns: These nouns are general in nature and are not capitalized. Take for example the proper noun St. Brice's Church; because of its reference to a specific church, it is a proper noun. But the word "church" used on its own is a common noun. This is a because it does not make reference to a specific church. 3. Countable Nouns: These nouns can be either singular or plural in nature and they are usually used in conjunction with words that reference quantity, such as most or many. Take for example the word table; it can be used as a singular noun "a table" or a plural noun "many tables". 4. Collective Nouns: These nouns, as their title implies, refer to a group. Collective nouns often reference a specific group. Take for example a "brigade of firemen" or a "grove of trees." 5. Abstract Nouns: Abstract nouns can be a little tricky to master because they refer to concepts, ideas and philosophies instead of physical things. For example abstract nouns can be things like courage, fear, hate and generosity. 6. Uncountable Nouns: These nouns cannot be counted they are often referred to as mass nouns. For example when saying, "The pool was full of water." The uncountable noun in this sentence is water. These nouns cannot be used in a plural form. 7. Concrete Nouns: These are nouns such as desk, water, Kevin, and cotton. These nouns can all be touched, smelt, tasted or seen. In order to be a concrete noun, it must be perceived by using one of the five senses. 8. Pronouns: These nouns can take the place of a noun when referring to people places or things. In English the personal pronouns are I, you, he, she, it and they. Depending on their

function within a sentence these nouns can take on their possessive forms or their objective case. For example in the sentence, "She danced around the room," she is a singular personal pronoun. In the sentence "Allana danced around her room," her is a possessive form of the personal pronoun.

Noun
For other uses, see Noun (disambiguation). In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition (or put more simply, a noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing or abstract idea).[1] Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of expressions. The syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to language. In English, nouns may be defined as those words which can occur with articles and attributive adjectives and can function as the head of a noun phrase. In traditional English grammar, the noun is one of the eight parts of speech.

History
Noun comes from the Latin nmen "name",[2] a translation of Ancient Greek noma.[3] Word classes like nouns were first described by Pini in the Sanskrit language and by Ancient Greek grammarians, and were defined by the grammatical forms that they take. In Greek and Sanskrit, for example, nouns are categorized by gender and inflected for case and number. Because nouns and adjectives share these three categories, Dionysius Thrax does not clearly distinguish between the two, and uses the term noma "name" for both, although some of the words that he describes as paraggn (pl. paragg) "derived"[4] are adjectives.[5]

Different definitions of nouns

Expressions of natural language have properties at different levels. They have formal properties, like what kinds of morphological prefixes or suffixes they take and what kinds of other expressions they combine with; but they also have semantic properties, i.e. properties pertaining to their meaning. The definition of a noun at the outset of this article is thus a formal, traditional grammatical definition. That definition, for the most part, is considered uncontroversial and furnishes the means for users of certain languages to effectively distinguish most nouns from non-nouns. However, it has the disadvantage that it

does not apply to nouns in all languages. For example in Russian, there are no definite articles, so one cannot define nouns as words that are modified by definite articles. There have also been several attempts to define nouns in terms of their semantic properties. Many of these are controversial, but some are discussed below.

Names for things

In traditional school grammars, one often encounters the definition of nouns that they are all and only those expressions that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, quantity, or idea, etc. This is a semantic definition. It has been criticized by contemporary linguists as being uninformative.[6] Contemporary linguists generally agree that one cannot successfully define nouns (or other grammatical categories) in terms of what sort of object in the world they refer to or signify. Part of the conundrum is that the definition makes use of relatively general nouns (thing, phenomenon, event) to define what nouns are. The existence of such general nouns demonstrates that nouns refer to entities that are organized in taxonomic hierarchies. But other kinds of expressions are also organized into such structured taxonomic relationships. For example the verbs stroll, saunter, stride, and tread are more specific words than the more general walk see Troponymy. Moreover, walk is more specific than the verb move, which, in turn, is less general than change. But it is unlikely that such taxonomic relationships can be used to define nouns and verbs. We cannot define verbs as those words that refer to changes or states, for example, because the nouns change and state probably refer to such things, but, of course, are not verbs. Similarly, nouns like invasion, meeting, or collapse refer to things that are done or happen. In fact, an influential theory has it that verbs like kill or die refer to events,[7][8] one of the categories of things that nouns are supposed to refer to. The point being made here is not that this view of verbs is wrong, but rather that this property of verbs is a poor basis for a definition of this category, just like the property of having wheels is a poor basis for a definition of cars (some things that have wheels, such as most suitcases or a jumbo jet, aren't cars). Similarly, adjectives like yellow or difficult might be thought to refer to qualities, and adverbs like outside or upstairs seem to refer to places, which are also among the sorts of things nouns can refer to. But verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are not nouns, and nouns are not verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. One might argue that definitions of this sort really rely on speakers' prior intuitive knowledge of what nouns, verbs, and adjectives are, and so do not really add anything. Speakers' intuitive knowledge of such things might plausibly be based on formal criteria, such as the traditional grammatical definition of English nouns aforementioned.

Predicates with identity criteria

The British logician Peter Thomas Geach proposed a more subtle semantic definition of nouns.[9] He noticed that adverbs like "same" can modify nouns, but no other kinds of parts of speech, like verbs or adjectives. Not only that, but there also do not seem to be any other

expressions with similar meaning that can modify verbs and adjectives. Consider the following examples. grammatical: John and Bill participated in the same fight. ungrammatical: *John and Bill samely fought. There is no English adverb samely. In some other languages, like Czech, however there are adverbs corresponding to samely. Hence, in Czech, the translation of the last sentence would be fine; however, it would mean that John and Bill fought in the same way: not that they participated in the same fight. Geach proposed that we could explain this, if nouns denote logical predicates with identity criteria. An identity criterion would allow us to conclude, for example, that person x at time 1 is the same person as person y at time 2. Different nouns can have different identity criteria. A well known example of this is due to Gupta:[10] National Airlines transported 2 million passengers in 1979. National Airlines transported (at least) 2 million persons in 1979. Given that, in general, all passengers are persons, the last sentence above ought to follow logically from the first one. But it doesn't. It is easy to imagine, for example, that on average, every person who travelled with National Airlines in 1979, travelled with them twice. In that case, one would say that the airline transported 2 million passengers but only 1 million persons. Thus, the way that we count passengers isn't necessarily the same as the way that we count persons. Put somewhat differently: At two different times, you may correspond to two distinct passengers, even though you are one and the same person. For a precise definition of identity criteria, see Gupta.[10]

Prototypically referential expressions

Another semantic definition of nouns is that they are prototypically referential.[11] Recently, Mark Baker[12] has proposed that Geach's definition of nouns in terms of identity criteria allows us to explain the characteristic properties of nouns. He argues that nouns can co-occur with (in-)definite articles and numerals, and are prototypically referential because they are all and only those parts of speech that provide identity criteria. Baker's proposals are quite new, and linguists are still evaluating them.

Classification of nouns in English

Proper nouns and common nouns
Main article: Proper noun A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing unique entities (such as London, Jupiter, Larry, or Toyota), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, planet, person or car).[13]

Agent nouns
Main article: Agent noun Agent nouns are usually common nouns (although they may be proper nouns, such as in titles or adopted surnames) that take the form of a subject (typically a person) performing an action (verb). Examples in English are maker (from to make), teacher (from to teach), and actor and actress (from to act).

Countable and uncountable nouns

Main articles: Count noun and Mass noun Count nouns are common nouns that can take a plural, can combine with numerals or quantifiers (e.g., one, two, several, every, most), and can take an indefinite article (a or an). Examples of count nouns are chair, nose, and occasion. Mass nouns (or non-count nouns) differ from count nouns in precisely that respect: they can't take plural or combine with number words or quantifiers. Examples from English include laughter, cutlery, helium, and furniture. For example, it is not possible to refer to a furniture or three furnitures. This is true even though the pieces of furniture comprising furniture could be counted. Thus the distinction between mass and count nouns should not be made in terms of what sorts of things the nouns refer to, but rather in terms of how the nouns present these entities.[14][15]

Collective nouns
Main article: Collective noun Collective nouns are nouns that refer to groups consisting of more than one individual or entity, even when they are inflected for the singular. Examples include committee, herd, and school (of fish). These nouns have slightly different grammatical properties than other nouns. For example, the noun phrases that they head can serve as the subject of a collective predicate, even when they are inflected for the singular.

Concrete nouns and abstract nouns

Further information: physical body and abstract object Concrete nouns refer to physical entities that can, in principle at least, be observed by at least one of the senses (for instance, chair, apple, Janet or atom). Abstract nouns, on the other hand, refer to abstract objects; that is, ideas or concepts (such as justice or hatred). While this distinction is sometimes exclusive, some nouns have multiple senses, including both concrete and abstract ones; consider, for example, the noun art, which usually refers to a concept (e.g., Art is an important element of human culture) but which can refer to a specific artwork in certain contexts (e.g., I put my daughter's art up on the fridge).

Some abstract nouns developed etymologically by figurative extension from literal roots. These include drawback, fraction, holdout, and uptake. Similarly, some nouns have both abstract and concrete senses, with the latter having developed by figurative extension from the former. These include view, filter, structure, and key. In English, many abstract nouns are formed by adding noun-forming suffixes (-ness, -ity, -ion) to adjectives or verbs. Examples are happiness (from the adjective happy), circulation (from the verb circulate) and serenity (from the adjective serene).

Noun phrases
Main article: Noun phrase A noun phrase is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word (nominal) optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives.

Pronouns
Main article: Pronoun Nouns and noun phrases can typically be replaced by pronouns, such as he, it, which, and those, in order to avoid repetition or explicit identification, or for other reasons. For example, in the sentence Janet thought that he was weird, the word he is a pronoun standing in place of the name of the person in question. The English word one can replace parts of noun phrases, and it sometimes stands in for a noun. An example is given below: John's car is newer than the one that Bill has. But one can also stand in for bigger subparts of a noun phrase. For example, in the following example, one can stand in for new car. This new car is cheaper than that one.

Substantive as a word for noun

"Substantive" redirects here. For other uses, see Substance (disambiguation). Starting with old Latin grammars, many European languages use some form of the word substantive as the basic term for noun (for example, Spanish sustantivo, "noun"). Nouns in the dictionaries of such languages are demarked by the abbreviation s. or sb. instead of n, which may be used for proper nouns instead. This corresponds to those grammars in which nouns and adjectives phase into each other in more areas than, for example, the English term predicate adjective entails. In French and Spanish, for example, adjectives frequently act as nouns referring to people who have the characteristics of the adjective. The most common metalanguage to name this concept is nominalization. An example in English is: This legislation will have the most impact on the poor.

Similarly, an adjective can also be used for a whole group or organization of people: The Socialist International. Hence, these words are substantives that are usually adjectives in English. The word nominal also overlaps in meaning and usage with noun and adjective

Types of Nouns
There are several ways to classify the types of nouns that exist in the English language. In traditional grammar, nouns are taught to be words that refer to people, places, things, or abstract ideas. While modern linguistics find this definition to be problematic because it relies on non-specific nouns such as thing to specifically define what a noun is, much of our social understanding of what nouns are defers to the traditional definition.

Classifications of Types of Nouns

Proper Nouns
Proper nouns are nouns that refer to specific entities. Writers of English capitalize proper nouns like Nebraska, Steve, Harvard, or White House to show their distinction from common nouns.

Common Nouns
Common nouns refer to general, unspecific categories of entities. Whereas Nebraska is a proper noun because it signifies a specific state, the word state itself is a common noun because it can refer to any of the 50 states in the United States. Harvard refers to a particular institution of higher learning, while the common noun university can refer to any such institution.

Countable Nouns
To linguists, these count nouns can occur in both single and plural forms, can be modified by numerals, and can co-occur with quantificational determiners like many, most, more, several, etc. For example, the noun bike is countable noun. Consider the following sentence: There is a bike in that garage. In this example, the word bike is singular as it refers to one bike that is presently residing in a particular garage.

However, bike can also occur in the plural form. There are six broken bikes in that garage. In this example, the noun bikes refers to more than one bike as it is being modified by the numeral six. In addition, countable nouns can co-occur with quantificational determiners. In that garage, several bikes are broken. This sentence is grammatical, as the noun bike can take the modification of the quantificational determiner several.

Uncountable Nouns or Mass Nouns

Conversely, some nouns are not countable and are called uncountable nouns or mass nouns. For example, the word clutter is a mass noun. That garage is full of clutter. This sentence makes grammatical sense. However, the following example does not. That garage is full of clutters. Mass nouns can not take plural forms, and therefore a sentence containing the word clutters is ungrammatical. Substances, liquids, and powders are entities that are often signified by mass nouns such as wood, sand, water, and flour. Other examples would be milk, air, furniture, freedom, rice, and intelligence.

Collective Nouns
In general, collective nouns are nouns that refer to a group of something in a specific manner. Often, collective nouns are used to refer to groups of animals. Consider the following sentences. Look at the gaggle of geese. There used to be herds of wild buffalo on the prairie. A bevy of swans is swimming in the pond. A colony of ants live in the anthill. In the above examples, gaggle, herds, bevy, and colony are collective nouns.

Concrete Nouns

Concrete nouns are nouns that can be touched, smelled, seen, felt, or tasted. Steak, table, dog, Maria, salt, and wool are all examples of concrete nouns. Can I pet your dog? Please pass the salt. Your sweater is made of fine wool. Concrete nouns can be perceived by at least one of our senses.

Abstract Nouns
More ethereal, theoretical concepts use abstract nouns to refer to them. Concepts like freedom, love, power, and redemption are all examples of abstract nouns. They hate us for our freedom. All you need is love. We must fight the power. In these sentences, the abstract nouns refer to concepts, ideas, philosophies, and other entities that cannot be concretely perceived.

Pronouns
Personal pronouns are types of nouns that take the place of nouns when referring to people, places or things. The personal pronouns in English are I, you, he, she, it, and they. Amy works at a flower shop. She works at a flower shop. The Greeks invented democracy. They invented democracy. These pronouns take on other forms depending on what type of function they are performing in a sentence. For example, when used to signify possession of another noun, pronouns take on their possessive form such as mine, ours, hers, and theirs. That pizza belongs to Marley. That pizza is hers. When used as the object of a preposition, pronouns take on their objective case. Examples include him, her, me, us, and them. Hand the money over to Jennifer. Hand the money over to her. The police are on to John and Ray. The police are on to them.

Classification of Nouns

Nouns may be classified as common nouns, proper nouns, abstract nouns, collective nouns, compound nouns, count nouns, non-count nouns, and possessive nouns.

1. Common Nouns
Common nouns indicate ordinary things of no particular emphasis. table box boy tree

2. Proper Nouns
Proper nouns name a specific person, group, event, thing or place. a band The Clash a person Mrs. Robinson a group The Royal Guard a place Bangkok

3. Concrete Nouns
Concrete nouns are things that can be experienced with the five senses: you see them, hear them, smell them, taste them, and feel them. elephant pie window truck

4. Abstract Nouns
Abstract nouns are things which cannot be experienced with the senses, the are ideas or concepts. beauty honor wickedness reputation

5. Collective Nouns
Collective nouns refer to a group of things that is treated as a single entity. The group consists of individual members, but the group is seen as one whole unit. committee herd tribe rain

Usually, collective nouns only have a singular form and require a singular verb. The herd of cattle is grazing in the field.

6. Compound Nouns
Compound nouns are two nouns put together to make a new noun. football suitcase newspaper corncob

7. Count (countable) Nouns

Count nouns refer to things that we can count. car book dish orange

Common nouns may be countable. There are a dozen flowers in the vase. He ate an apple for a snack. Collective nouns may be countable, depending on the context. She attended three classes today. London is home to several orchestras. Some proper nouns are countable. There are many Greeks living in New York. The Vanderbilts would throw lavish parties at their Newport summer mansion. A countable noun always takes either the indefinite (a, an) or definite (the) article when it is singular. When plural, it takes the definite article if it refers to a definite, specific group and no article if it is used in a general sense.

The guest of honor arrived late. You are welcome as a guest in our home. The guests at your party yesterday made a lot of noise. (specific sense, use definite article) Guests are welcome here anytime. (general sense, use no article)

8. Non-Count (uncountable or mass) Nouns

Non-count nouns refer to things that we cannot count. grass sugar money news

Abstract nouns are uncountable. The price of freedom is constant vigilance. Her writing shows maturity and intelligence. Some concrete nouns are uncountable (when understood in their undivided sense). The price of oil has stabilized recently. May I borrow some rice? Usually non-count nouns take only the singular form; however, sometimes they may be pluralized when used in a countable sense. The difference between the uncountable and countable meanings of nouns that are used in either sense can be seen in the following. Non-count Sense :Art is often called an imitation of life. Countable Sense:I read a book about the folk arts of Sweden. Non-count Sense : He likes to eat pizza. Countable Sense:How many pizzas should we order? Non-count Sense :Religion has been a powerful force in history. Countable Sense:Many religions are practiced in the United States. Non-count Sense : She has beautiful skin. Countable Sense:The hull of a kayak is made of animal skins. Non-count Sense : Dr. Moulton is an expert in ancient Greek sculpture. Countable Sense:We have several Greek sculptures in our home. Non-count Sense : We use only recycled paper in our office. Countable Sense:Where are those important papers?

Non-count nouns never take the indefinite article (a or an), but they sometimes take the definite article the if the non-count noun is used in the specific sense.(in the same way the is used with plural countable nouns, that is, when referring to a specific object, group, or idea. Information is a precious commodity in our computerized world. (general sense) The information in your files is correct. (specific sense) Sugar has become more expensive recently. (general sense) Please pass me the sugar. (specific sense)

9. Possessive Nouns
Possessive nouns indicate ownership or close relationship. the mugs handle the boys shoes.

Formation of Nouns
To help determine whether a particular word is a noun look at the suffixes Words ending in ness are nouns. happiness helplesness Words ending in ity are nouns. possibility complexity probability hilarity responsibility scarcity sadness tidiness weakness forgetfulness

Words ending in tion/sion are nouns. admission decision alteration description information multiplication

Words ending in ment are nouns. enjoyment replacement appointment

arrangement

merriment

abasement

Words ending in ance/ence are nouns. absence importance silence appearance independence existence

Words ending in ship are nouns. relationship partnership friendship membership

Words ending in hood are nouns. childhood priesthood motherhood neighborhood

Noun - Proper nouns and common nouns Proper nouns (also called proper names) are the names of unique entities. For example, "Janet", "Jupiter" and "Germany" are proper nouns. Proper nouns are capitalized in English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, and this is one easy way to recognise them. This fails, however, in German, in which nouns of all types are capitalized. All other nouns are called common nouns. For example, "girl", "planet", and "country" are common nouns. Sometimes the same word can function as both a common noun and a proper noun, where one such entity is special. For example: "There can be many gods, but there is only one God." The common meaning of the word or words constituting a proper noun may be unrelated to the object to which the proper noun refers. For example, someone might be named "Tiger Smith" despite being neither a tiger nor a smith. For this reason, proper nouns are usually not translated between languages, although they may be transliterated. For example, the German surname Kndel becomes Knodel or Knoedel in English (not the literal Dumpling). However, the translation of placenames and the names of monarchs, popes, and noncontemporary authors is common and sometimes mandatory. For instance, the Portuguese word Lisboa becomes Lisbon in English; the English London becomes Londres in French; and Aristotle was, in Greek, Aristotels. Noun - Count nouns and mass nouns

In everyday terms, count nouns (or countable nouns) refer to discrete, countable objects. Count nouns can take a plural, can combine with numerals or quantifiers (e.g. "one", "two", "several", "every", "most"), and can take an indefinite article ("a" or "an"). Examples of count nouns are "chair", "nose", and "occasion". Mass nouns (or non-countable nouns) refer to objects that cannot be individually enumerated. Examples from English include "laughter", "cutlery", "helium", and "furniture". For example, it is not possible to refer to "a furniture" or "three furnitures". Some words function in the singular as a count noun and, without a change in the spelling, as a mass noun in the plural: she caught a fish, we caught fish; he shot a deer, they shot some deer; the craft was dilapidated, the pier was chockablock with craft. Noun - Collective nouns Noun - Concrete nouns and abstract nouns Concrete nouns refer to definite objectsobjects in which you use at least one of your senses. For instance, "chair", "apple", or "Janet". Abstract nouns on the other hand refer to ideas or concepts, such as "justice" or "hate". While this distinction is sometimes useful, the boundary between the two of them is not always clear. In English, many abstract nouns are formed by adding noun-forming suffixes ("-ness", "-ity", "-tion") to adjectives or verbs. Examples are "happiness", "circulation" and "serenity".

2. Noun classification in Swahili

2.1. Outline of the Swahili noun class system
Swahili, a member of the Sabaki subgroup of Northeast Coast Bantu, has a noun class system that is typical of Bantu languages. All nouns are divided into 11 classes. The class of a noun is signalled by (a) a pair of prefixes attached to the nominal stem, one for singular, one for plural; (b) a characteristic pattern of grammatical agreement, whereby possessive pronouns, demonstratives, verb subject and object prefixes, and other sentence elements coreferential with a noun are assigned a prefix that co-indexes the class of the noun, if it denotes an inanimate object. Sentence elements relating to nouns that denote animate beings are indexed by a special set of "animate concords", regardless of the prefix on the noun. Table 1 shows the nominal and concordial prefixes associated with the various classes[1]:

(1) Table 1. Swahili nominal and concordial prefixes (some morphophonemic alternations ignored).
Class (traditional Nominal Prefix (affixed to `fixed class' Adjectival Pfx (affixed to `variable Pronominal Pfx (affixed to V stems as

Bantu numbering) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11/14

stems

class'stems)

Subj/Obj; to Dem.Pro., Poss.Pro.&c.) a-/m-; yu-; w-;ye(depends on stem) wauiliyakiviiziu-

mwammizero or jimakivizero or nzero or nu-

mwammizero or jimakivizero or nzero or nm-

Inspection of Table 1 shows that noun class cannot be determined solely from the form of the noun: the prefixes for Classes 1 and 3 (m- in both cases) are homonymous; this is also often true of Classes 9, 10, and 5, where the noun may have no prefix at all. The agreement prefixes also show some homonymy. Therefore the definition of `noun class' in Swahili normally involves reference both to the prefix on the noun (if there is one) and to the pattern of grammatical agreement[2].

2.2. Earlier treatments of the noun classes

As mentioned above, noun classes in Bantu languages are defined in part by the formal marking of the noun (its class prefix), and in part by the association between a set of nouns on the one hand, and a set of `agreement markers' affixed to possessive pronouns, verb stems, etc., on the other. Although there is a wide range of opinions about whether the noun classes in Swahili and other Bantu languages have semantic content, there is great uniformity on the treatment of grammatical agreement. Agreement is assumed to be a purely syntactic phenomenon, in which the grammatical properties of one element in the sentence (the agreeing element, or `target', in the terminology of Corbett 1991) are determined by those of another element (the `controller', in this case the noun). In other words, it is assumed that `agreement' morphology contributes no independent semantic content to the message being communicated, but is merely a mechanical copying of features of the `controller' onto the `target'[3]. Implicit in this view is the further assumption that `controllers', such as noun stems, `have' fixed grammatical properties (e.g. membership in a particular noun class); without this assumption one could hardly speak of copying features from the noun to, say, a coreferential demonstrative pronoun. Given this prevailing view of concord, the question of meaningfulness of the noun classes in Bantu languages has only been raised with respect to the prefixes attached to noun stems. The question that has been addressed is, can any regular semantic principles be identified to explain the assignment of noun stems to classes? Answers to this question, perhaps predictably, range from no to yes, but the majority opinion lies somewhere in between.

Perhaps the most extreme position on the `no' side is that of Irvine Richardson (1967:378), whose assertion that `...it is impossible to prove conclusively by any reputable methodology that nominal classification in Proto-Bantu was indeed widely based on conceptual implication...' is widely quoted, especially by those who disagree with it[4]. At the other end of the spectrum are those who have tried to define each noun class in terms of a single abstract meaning, such as Denny and Creider's (1976) analysis of Proto-Bantu, and Zawawi's (1979) analysis of noun classes in Swahili. Denny and Creider argue that Proto-Bantu had two subsystems of categorization, with partially overlapping morphology, one for count nouns and one for mass nouns. The count noun categories are further subdivided into `kind' classes, that identify objects as animate vs. artifact, and `spatial configuration' classes, that subclassify objects according to shape. The mass noun categories make a distinction between `cohesive' (substances that stick together) and `dispersive' (substances composed of dry particles that are readily dispersed). In the same spirit, though differing in content, Zawawi (1979) assigns a single invariant meaning to each noun class prefix in Swahili. Zawawi's analysis is innovative: she abandons the traditional criteria for definition of the classes, pointing out correctly that they are often inconsistent, and even groups together prefixes traditionally treated as homonyms. According to her analysis, the singular classes subclassify nouns as `substance of life' (m-, traditionally divided into Classes 1 and 3), `substance of abstractness' (u-, traditionally defined as a merger of Classes 11 and 14), `comparison of size or manner' (ki-, Class 7), `intensification' (zero ~ ji-, Class 5), `large' (ba-, not a traditional Bantu class), and a residual `catch-all' category (zero ~ n-, Classes 9/10). Unfortunately, analyses of the noun classes in terms of invariant meaning have failed to convince the skeptics, because there are always some examples that conflict with the invariant meanings that are posited. For instance, Denny and Creider's definition of ProtoBantu Class 3 as `solid, extended in one dimension' does not seem to cover terms like *dImu `ancestral spirit'[5], *-tIma `heart', *-yedI `moon', *-gUba `bellows', *-dIgo `load', *yInci `daylight', etc. And Zawawi's definition of m- as `substance of life, singular' does not cover terms like mkufu `metal chain', mji `town', mfumbi `irrigation ditch', mlia `stripe', deverbal nouns, etc. The middle-of-the-road position on the semantics of the noun classes is to divide the noun classes into two subsets: a `derived' set of classes, assumed to be meaningful, to which noun stems from any class can be freely assigned with predictable effects on meaning, and an `inherent' set of classes, whose membership is largely arbitrary. Formally, these sets overlap: the same morphology is used for both `inherent' and `derived' class. The `derived' classes include the diminutive classes (with ki-/vi- prefixes, homonymous with the prefixes of Classes 7/8) and the augmentative classes (with zero/ma- prefixes, homonymous with the prefixes of Classes 5/6). With respect to the `inherent' classes, it is usually argued that although some semantic generalizations can be made about the groupings of nouns into classes, there is also a great deal of arbitrariness. It is often surmised that the present, disorganized system is a breakdown of an earlier, more coherent system assumed to have existed in the ancestor language. Examples of studies employing the `inherent/derived'

distinction are Givon (1972), for ChiBemba; Heine (1982), who uses the terms `free' vs. `fixed' gender; Reynolds (1989), Reynolds and Eastman (1989), and Nurse and Hinnebusch (1993) for Swahili. Although it is useful to distinguish between productive and non-productive processes of noun formation, the `inherent/derived' distinction ignores the question whether there are any semantic regularities in `inherent' classes, and also ignores semantic relationships, if any, between `inherent' and `derived' class markers. Rarely is any attempt made to connect the various groupings of nouns in a given class with one another, to investigate systematic relationships among different classes, or to explain the exceptions to the generalizations (such as names of animals that are are not in the `animal' class). Also, the claim that the modern languages represent a breakdown of an earlier, more coherent system that used to exist in the ancestor language is basically a myth. The Proto-Bantu noun class system also had many apparent anomalies-- if it didn't, there would be no controversy about whether the Proto-Bantu noun classes were meaningful (see also Herbert 1985). In fact, claims about a mythical, semantically transparent system assumed to have existed in an ancestor language are commonplace in discussions of noun categorization, not only in Bantu (cf. Meillet 1923 on gender in Indo-European), yet no modern noun class language is attested with such a transparent system. It seems implausible to attribute a property to an ancestral language that is not found in any language of which we have direct knowledge. But if noun class systems are so full of anomalies, why do they persist for so long essentially intact (in the case of Bantu, some 3000 years or more)? The problem seems to lie not with the languages, but with the assumptions about the nature of linguistic categorization that are brought to bear on this question. It seems to be assumed that either noun class semantics must be defined in terms of a set of common properties shared by all nouns in a given class, or one must abandon the search for semantic coherence and settle for a heterogeneous list. As pointed out by Lakoff (1987), this assumption is based on a view of linguistic categories as equivalent to sets in Aristotelian logic, which must be defined in terms of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for membership. This view of linguistic categorization has been widely challenged in recent years, especially from the point of view of Cognitive Grammar (cf. Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987, 1990; Rudzka-Ostyn 1988). It has been argued that membership in a given linguistic category (for example, a noun class) may be based on multiple criteria, including `family resemblances', metaphor, and metonymy, and that linguistic categories may exhibit an internal structure in which some members of the category are more central, or prototypical, and others are more peripheral. Although work within Cognitive Grammar has tended to concentrate on the semantics of individual lexical items, there are some detailed and illuminating studies of noun categorization that make use of similar insights: the work of Zubin and Koepcke on gender in German (Zubin and Koepcke 1986a, 1986b) and the work of Spitulnik on noun classes in ChiBemba (Spitulnik 1987, 1989). In sum, rather than treating noun class systems as degenerate reflections of an earlier, vanished coherence, we should broaden our conception of `coherence'. From a cognitivesemantic viewpoint even the synchronic systems of the modern languages can be shown to make sense.