Is there a term for "lexeme-describing grammatical feature"?

Question

I've heard terms like grammatical category and grammatical feature being used for inflectional properties such as number, person, tense, mood, and so on. Gender is commonly included in this list too, but I see a distinct difference with it. Gender describes the lexeme, while the others describe inflections.

Is there an established term for what I'm calling lexeme-describing grammatical features? Is noun class the term I'm looking for? Does this term really cover all bases, as it refers specifically to nouns? If you take all languages into account, don't you find examples of lexeme-describing grammatical features that describe other words than nouns?

Answer 1

Yes, gender is generally a noun class. If you go outside common European languages, you will find that in languages of the world, there is a whole range of non-gender-based noun categories. Even in IE languages, this can shift from Masculine/Feminine/Neuter to Animate/Inanimate but more famous example is e.g. Japanese with its long thin objects category etc. or in linguistic circles even more famouse Dyirbal with classes for a) animate objects, men; b) women, water, fire, violence; c) edible fruit and vegetables; d) miscellaneous.

As for your query about other lexeme-describing grammatical features for other word classes, it is quite possible but it would help if you defined more specifically what you mean by this term you are trying to establish.