Semantic and pragmatic motivations of gender assignment in Hausa

The paper presents instances of gender assignment in Hausa which have either a semantic or a pragmatic motivation. Following an overview of the basic principles of Hausa gender categories, and some remarks on gender discrepancies, the relevant gender sensitive agreement markers are subjected to more detailed analysis. Special attention is then given to sentences in which feminine pronouns, etc. have no reference to any other feminine constituent of the sentence.