There are three main ways by which natural languages categorize nouns into noun classes: according to similarities in their meaning (semantic criterion); by grouping them with other nouns that have similar form (morphology); through an arbitrary convention. Usually, a combination of the three types of criteria is used, though one is more prevalent.
There are three main ways by which natural languages categorize nouns into noun classes: according to similarities in their meaning (semantic criterion); by grouping them with other nouns that have similar form (morphology); through an arbitrary convention. Usually, a combination of the three types of criteria is used though one is more prevalent.