In
linguistics, the term
nominal refers to a category used to group together
nouns and
adjectives based on shared properties. The motivation for nominal grouping is that in many languages nouns and adjectives share a number of
morphological and
syntactic properties. The systems used in such languages to show agreement can be classified broadly as gender systems, noun class systems or
case marking, classifier systems, and mixed systems. Typically an
affix related to the noun appears attached to the other
parts of speech within a sentence to create agreement. Such morphological agreement usually occurs in parts within the
noun phrase, such as
determiners and adjectives. Languages with overt nominal agreement vary in how and to what extent agreement is required.