Nominal (linguistics)

In linguistics, the term nominal refers to a category used to group together nouns and adjectives based on shared properties. The motivation for nominal grouping is that in many languages nouns and adjectives share a number of morphological and syntactic properties. The systems used in such languages to show agreement can be classified broadly as gender systems, noun class systems or case marking, classifier systems, and mixed systems. Typically an affix related to the noun appears attached to the other parts of speech within a sentence to create agreement. Such morphological agreement usually occurs in parts within the noun phrase, such as determiners and adjectives. Languages with overt nominal agreement vary in how and to what extent agreement is required.

The history of research on nominals dates back to European studies on Latin and Bantu in which agreement between nouns and adjectives according to the class of the noun can be seen overtly.

Within the study of European languages, recognition of the nominal grouping is reflected in traditional grammar studies based on Latin, which has a highly productive marking system. Nominals can be seen in the shared morphemes that attach to the ends of nouns and adjectives and agree in case and gender. In the example below, 'son' and 'good' agree in nominative case because they are the subject of the sentence and at the same time they agree in gender because the ending is masculine. Likewise, 'the dog' and 'wild' share the same morphemes that show they agree in accusative case and masculine gender. In Latin agreement goes beyond nouns and adjectives.

The earliest study of noun classes was conducted in 1659 on Bantu languages, and this study has to this day undergone only very minor modifications. These alterations began with Wilhelm Bleek's Ancient Bantu which led to Proto-Bantu . The following example is from the Bantu Language Ganda. For nominal classes in Bantu, see below.

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