(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 animacy of a noun is one of these factors for a given language. There must be a clear preference for certain nouns to be classified in certain gender categories as a result of their animacy for this feature to be coded 1. That is, animacy must be a 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 while masculine and feminine categories are generally associated with animate referents, a gender system that makes a distinction between these categories is not necessarily sufficient to trigger a 1 here. A gender system in which animacy is a relevant factor will often make a distinction between human or animal referents and non-living referents, and animate status may be extended to culturally important non-living entities (e.g. mythological figures) or objects (e.g. celestial bodies). A human/non-human distinction is sufficient for a 1 code."