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Information about Animacy

Animacy is a grammatical category, usually of nouns, which influences the form a verb takes when it is associated with that noun.

Usually, animacy has to do with how alive or how sentient the referent of a noun is. In general, personal pronouns have the highest animacy, the first-person being the highest among them. Other humans follow them, and animals, plants, natural forces such as winds, concrete things, and abstract things follow in this order; however, according to the spiritual beliefs of the people whose language possesses an animacy hierarchy, deities, spirits, or certain types of animal or plant may be ranked very highly in the hierarchy.

Examples

The distinction between he/she and it is a distinction in animacy; some languages, such as Turkish and spoken Finnish do not distinguish between s/he and it. English, on the other hand, shows a similar lack of distinction between they animate and they inanimate.

Animacy plays some roles in English, as in any other language. For example, the higher animacy a referent has, the less preferable it is to use the preposition of for possession, as follows:
  • My face is correct, while *the face of me is not.
  • The man's face and the face of the man are both correct, and the former is preferred.
  • The clock's face and the face of the clock are both correct, and the latter is preferred.
Examples of languages in which an animacy hierarchy is important include the Mexican language Totonac and the Southern Athabaskan languages (such as Western Apache and Navajo), whose animacy hierarchy has been the subject of intense study. The Tamil language has a noun classification based on animacy.

Apachean

Like most Athabaskan languages, Southern Athabaskan languages show various levels of animacy in their grammar, with certain nouns taking specific verb forms according to their rank in this animacy hierarchy. For instance, Navajo nouns can be ranked by animacy on a continuum from most animate (a human) to least animate (an abstraction) (Young & Morgan 1987: 65-66):

Human > Infant/Big Animal > Medium-sized Animal > Small Animal > Natural Force > Abstraction

Generally, the most animate noun in a sentence must occur first while the noun with lesser animacy occurs second. If both nouns are equal in animacy, then either noun can occur in the first position. So, both example sentences (1) and (2) are correct. The yi- prefix on the verb indicates that the 1st noun is the subject and bi- indicates that the 2nd noun is the subject.

(1)Ashkiiat’éédyiníł’į́
boygirlyi-look
'The boy is looking at the girl.'


(2)At’éédashkiibiníł’į́
girlboybi-look
'The girl is being looked at by the boy.'


But example sentence (3) sounds wrong to most Navajo speakers because the less animate noun occurs before the more animate noun:

(3)*Tsídiiat’éédyishtąsh
birdgirlyi-pecked
*'The bird pecked the girl.'


In order to express this idea, the more animate noun must occur first, as in sentence (4):

(4)At’éédtsídibishtąsh
girlbirdbi-pecked
'The girl was pecked by the bird.'

Japanese

Although nouns in Japanese are not marked for animacy, it has two existential/possessive verbs; one which for implicitly animate nouns (usually humans and animals) and one for implicitly inanimate nouns (usually non-living objects and plants, etc.) The verb iru (いる also written 居る）is used to show the existence or possession of an animate noun. The verb aru (ある, sometimes written 在る when existential or 有る when possessive) is used to show the existence or possession of an inanimate noun.

An animate noun, in this case 'cat,' is marked as the subject of the verb with the subject particle ga (が), but no topic and no location are marked. This implies the noun is indefinite and merely exists.

(1)Nekogairu.
??い?
catSUBJECTto exist/to have
'There is a cat.'


In the second example, a topic is introduced, in this case "I", with the topic particle ha (は). The animate noun is again marked with a subject particle, and no location is denoted. This implies that the topic owns, or perhaps is holding onto, the noun.

(2)Watashihanekogairu.
????い?
ITOPICcatSUBJECTto exist/to have
'I have a cat.'


In the third example the noun is marked as the topic (and by default functions as the subject of the verb) while a location, in this case the top of a chair, is marked with the location particle ni (に). This implies that the noun is both a definite noun and that is located at the specified location.

(2)Nekohaisu no ueniiru.
??椅子の??い?
catTOPICchair+NOUNCOORDINATOR+above/onLOCATIONto exist/to have
'The cat is on the chair.'


In all these cases if the noun is not animate, such as a stone, instead of a cat, the verb iru must be replaced with the verb aru (ある or 有る[possessive]/在る[existential,locative]).
(1)Ishigaaru.
??あ?
stoneSUBJECTto exist/to have
'There is a stone.'


(2)Watashihaishigaaru.
????あ?
ITOPICstoneSUBJECTto exist/to have
'I have a stone.'


(3)Ishihaisu no ueniaru.
??椅子の??あ?
stoneTOPICchair+NOUNCOORDINATOR+above/onLOCATIONto exist/to have
'The stone is on the chair.'


In some cases where 'natural' animacy is ambiguous, whether a noun is animate or not is the decision of the speaker, as in the case of a robot, which could be correlated with the animate verb (to signify sentience or anthropomorphism), or with the inanimate verb (to emphasise that is a non-living thing).

(1)Robottogairu.
ロボッ??い?
robotSUBJECTto exist/to have
'There is a robot' (emphasis on its human-like behavior).


(2)Robottogaaru.
ロボッ??あ?
robotSUBJECTto exist/to have
'There is a robot' (emphasis on its status as a non-living thing).

Russian

In Russian, the accusative of animate nouns that are either masculine singular or masculine or feminine plural coincides with the genitive, while the accusative of inanimate nouns in the same cases coincides with the nominative.

For example, animate noun брат [brat] "a brother" in nominative case, inanimate noun кран [kran] "a crane" in accusative case:
(1)Братподнимаеткран
Bratpodnimayetkran
A brotherliftsa crane
And on the contrary, брат in accusative case, кран in nominative case:
(2)Кранподнимаетбрата
Kranpodnimayetbrata
A craneliftsa brother

Sinhala

In spoken Sinhala there are two existential/possessive verbs: හිටිනවා hiţinawā / ඉන්නවා innawā are used only for animate nouns (humans and animals), while තියෙනවා tiyenawā for inanimate nouns (non-living objects, plants, things, etc.)

For example:
(1)minihāinnawā
මිනිහ?ඉන්නව?
manthere is/exists (animate)
There is the man


(2)waturatiyenawā
වතු?තියෙනව?
waterthere is/exists (inanimate)
There is water

Animacy hierarchy and split ergativity

Animacy can also condition the nature of the morphologies of languages which are split-ergative. In such languages, participants which are more animate are more likely to be the agent of the verb, and therefore are marked in an accusative pattern: unmarked in the agent role and marked in the patient or oblique role. Likewise, less animate participants are inherently more patient-like, and take ergative marking: unmarked when in the patient role and marked when in the agent role. The hierarchy of animacy generally, but not always, is ordered:
1st person>2nd person>3rd person>proper names>humans>non-humans>inanimates
animates
The location of the split (the line which divides the inherently agentive participants from the inherently patientive participants) varies from language to language, and in many cases the two classes overlaps, with a class of nouns near the middle of the hierarchy being marked for both the agent and patient roles.

References

  • Frishberg, Nancy. (1972). Navajo object markers and the great chain of being. In J. Kimball (Ed.), Syntax and semantics, (Vol. 1), (p. 259-266). New York: Seminar Press.
  • Hale, Kenneth L. (1973). A note on subject-object inversion in Navajo. In B. B. Kachru, R. B. Lees, Y. Malkiel, A. Pietrangeli, & S. Saporta (Eds.), Issues in linguistics: Papers in honor of Henry and Renée Kahane, (p. 300-309). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
  • Thomas E. Payne, 1997. Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-58224-5
  • Young, Robert W., & Morgan, William, Sr. (1987). The Navajo language: A grammar and colloquial dictionary (rev. ed.). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-1014-1

See also

A grammatical category is a general term. It encompasses among other things:
  • Grammatical aspect
  • Grammatical case
  • Grammatical mood
  • Definiteness
  • Animacy
  • Evidentiality
  • Noun class
  • Grammatical gender
  • Grammatical number
  • Grammatical polarity

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Examples
A proper or common noun can co-occur with an article or an attributive adjective. Verbs and adjectives can't. As usual, a `*' in front of an example means that this example is ungrammatical.
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verb is a word belonging to the part of speech that usually denotes an action (bring, read), an occurrence (decompose, glitter), or a state of being (exist, stand).
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Not to be confused with sapience.
Sentience refers to utilization of sensory organs, the ability to feel or perceive subjectively, not necessarily including the faculty of self-awareness. The possession of sapience is not a necessity.
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reference is a relation between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. Such relations may occur in a variety of domains, including linguistics, logic, computer science, art, and scholarship.
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    In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. The replaced phrase is the antecedent of the pronoun.
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    Implicational hierarchy is a chain of implicational universals. A set of chained universals is schematically shown as in (1):

    (1) A > B > C > D

    It can be reformulated in the following way: If a language has property D, then it also has properties A, B, and C;
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    Turkish (Türkçe, ] (help info )
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    Spoken Finnish (puhekieli) is the colloquial variant of the Finnish language often used in spoken language. This article deals with features of the spoken Finnish language, specifically the variant seen as dialectless.
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    English}}} 
    Writing system: Latin (English variant) 
    Official status
    Official language of: 53 countries
    Regulated by: no official regulation
    Language codes
    ISO 639-1: en
    ISO 639-2: eng
    ISO 639-3: eng  
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    Southern Athabaskan (also Apachean) is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the North American Southwest (including Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Sonora) with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas.
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    Western Apache refers to the similar Apache peoples living primarily in east central Arizona. Goodwin (1938) claims that the Western Apache can be divided into five groups based on dialect:
    • Cibecue,
    • Northern Tonto,
    • Southern Tonto,
    • San Carlos, and

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    Navajo or Navaho (native name: Diné bizaad) is an Athabaskan language (of Na-Dené stock) spoken in the southwest United States by the Navajo people (Diné).
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    Tamil}}} 
    Writing system: Vatteluttu 
    Official status
    Official language of:  India,[4][5]

    The template is . Please use instead.
    This usage is deprecated. Please replace it with .

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    In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once.
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    Navajo or Navaho (native name: Diné bizaad) is an Athabaskan language (of Na-Dené stock) spoken in the southwest United States by the Navajo people (Diné).
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    This article contains Japanese text.
    Without proper ,
    you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji or kana.

    Japanese
    日本語
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    In linguistics, a copula is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a subject complement or an adverbial). Although it might not itself express an action or condition, it serves to equate (or associate) the subject with the predicate.
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    Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which (the possessor) possesses (owns, rules over, has as a part, has as a relative, etc.) the referent of the other.
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    A topic-prominent language is one that organizes its syntax so that sentences have a topic-comment (or theme-rheme) structure, where the topic is the thing being talked about (predicated) and the comment is what is said about the topic.
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    Russian}}} 
    Writing system: Cyrillic (Russian variant)  
    Official status
    Official language of:  Abkhazia (Georgia)
     Belarus
     Commonwealth of Independent States (working)
     Crimea (de facto; Ukraine)
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    19 million
    Language family: }}}
     Indo-Iranian
      Indo-Aryan
       Insular Indo-Aryan

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    In linguistics, a copula is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a subject complement or an adverbial). Although it might not itself express an action or condition, it serves to equate (or associate) the subject with the predicate.
    ..... Click the link for more information.
    Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which (the possessor) possesses (owns, rules over, has as a part, has as a relative, etc.) the referent of the other.
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    Split ergativity is shown by languages that have a partly ergative behaviour, but employ another syntax or morphology — usually accusative — in some contexts. In fact, most of the so-called ergative languages are not pure but split-ergative.
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    theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure (the number and type of noun phrases) required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb put requires three arguments (i.e., it is ditransitive).
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    In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once.
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    In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly
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    A classifier, in linguistics, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify a noun according to its meaning.

    Classifier systems should not be confused with noun classes, which often categorize nouns in ways independent from meaning, such as according to morphology.
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