(By Anna Siewierska): "Independent personal pronouns, in contrast to bound forms (i.e. clitics and affixes), are separate words capable of taking primary stress. Virtually all languages have independent personal pronouns, though in some they occur rather infrequently. Gender, as defined by Corbett (1991), is a form of classification of nominals, as shown by agreement... Most gender contrasts on personal pronouns are sex-based, i.e. pronouns used for male referents are masculine and those used for females are feminine. The treatment of other referents varies. They may be referred to by a separate set (or sets) of neuter pronouns, as is the case in English and many other European languages. Alternatively, they may be grouped with the referents of masculine gender (e.g. Amharic), or less commonly with the referents of feminine gender (e.g. Warekena), or split over the masculine and feminine genders in an arbitrary way or according to some semantically based principle (e.g. Garifuna)."