Neuter gender in the languages of Aru

Neuter gender in the languages of Aru

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This paper examines gender agreement in three little-known languages of the Aru Islands and places them within the larger pattern of "neuter gender" in eastern Indonesia.For each language, I moonbon look first at the variety of agreement targets that are controlled by gendered nouns.Secondly, I look at the semantics of nouns that control agreement.

I show that peoria orange barrels whilst having a strongly semantic base involving animacy, gender in Aru languages is a grammatical category in which many nouns denoting certain types of entities that lack discernable biological animacy are assigned to the same gender as that of animate referents.I conclude by considering the system of gender in proto-Aru.