The classification of names

Abstract

Abstract Personal names can be specified as male or female in almost all languages of the world. Languages differ, however, whether the sex of the referent is lexical knowledge or overtly coded in the form of the name. Symmetrical systems – with overt marking on both male and female names – can be distinguished from asymmetrical ones, of which one subtype, overt coding of female names, is by far the most frequent. In addition, the morpho-syntactic system of encoding the sex of the referent can be either limited to personal names or use morphological material also employed on other types of nominals. This paper investigates the morpho-syntactic means used for the classification of personal names in the languages of the world as well as the integration of personal names into classificatory systems used for common nouns, namely gender and classifiers.