(By Hannah J. Haynie): "A noun class/gender system categorizes nouns for the purposes of grammatical agreement with other constituents in the noun phrase or other inflectional morphology. See the classification wiki page for more information on our definition of noun class/gender. Noun class/gender assignment may be based on one or several factors. This feature focuses on whether the shape of an object is one of these factors for a given language. There must be a clear preference for certain nouns to be classified to certain gender categories as a result of their shape for this feature to be coded 1. That is, shape must be one relevant factor in the assignment of gender; however it does not need to be an absolute deciding factor or the only relevant factor in gender/class assignment. ❡
Note that noun class markers are sometimes used to mark diminutives and augmentatives; this feature focuses specifically on shape (e.g. long, round, square, wide) and should not be coded 1 if noun class markers associated with some other semantic categories (e.g. masculine and feminine) are recruited for diminutive and augmentative forms unless there is some other clear shape-based assignment."