Pronouns and Gender: Exploring Nominal Classi2cation Systems in Northern New Guinea

This article is intended not as an overview of the range of nominal classi2cation systems that can be found in the northern part of West Papua, but as a discussion of a typologically rare development of classi2cation that is found in some languages of this quarter of New Guinea. This discursion is set in a brief discussion of some of the more typical systems that are found in geographically, and genetically, divergent languages of the region. The focus of the article is the presentation of data that shows the classi2cation of the personal pronouns into different gender classes, and examines possible motivations for this unusual phenomenon.