Gender assignment based on semantics

In the podcast episode, the speaker discusses gender assignment in languages, focusing on two broad systems: semantic gender assignment and formal gender assignment. In the semantic system, gender is assigned based on the meaning of the noun. For example, in classic masculine-feminine gender, all nouns referring to men are assigned masculine gender, while nouns referring to women are assigned feminine gender. The speaker provides the example of Tamil, where rational nouns are classified as masculine or feminine based on their semantic meaning. However, the speaker notes that there can be complications in semantic assignment. Despite these complications, semantic assignment generally takes priority over other factors in these languages.