Let us consider a language with a two-gender system. The gender is intrinsic to the root, and is not marked morphologically in the basic form. Thus, you cannot predict the gender of a word from its spoken or written citation form.
There exist three markers, however, that are used when changing the gender, or under certain other situations. The markers are +masc, +fem, +poss/inv.
The gloss "poss/inv" may seem weird, but we'll get to that in a moment. A possessum will either be marked by '+poss/inv', if the possessor is the same gender as the possessum, or by the gender marker of the possessor's gender, if there's a difference.
However, '+poss/inv' is also used to derive nouns that are the other gender. The derivation for 'agentive nouns', for most nouns, for instance, is masculine; adding +poss/inv, with no overt possessor, forms a feminine agent. Some verbs, however, do default to female agents, and for these, '+poss/inv' forms the male agent. Various animals also have default genders.
The basic outline here should also provide a framework to come up with even more convoluted possession- and gender-marking strategies.
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