Animacy
Animacy is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around the globe and is a distinction acquired as early as six months of age.
Concepts of animacy constantly vary beyond a simple animate and inanimate binary; many languages function off an hierarchical general animacy scale that ranks animacy as a "matter of gradience". Typically, the scale ranks humans above animals, then plants, natural forces, concrete objects, and abstract objects, in that order. In referring to humans, this scale contains a hierarchy of persons, ranking the first- and second-person pronouns above the third person, partly a product of empathy, involving the speaker and interlocutor.
It is obvious that the ability to distinguish between animate and inanimate is very important from an evolutionary point of view. In order to survive, an animal must be able to quickly and accurately distinguish between its sexual partners, rivals, predators, animals that it eats, etc., and inanimate objects. As for people, the ability to distinguish between animate and inanimate arises in infancy, even before children have mastered speech. Apparently, there is a brain mechanism responsible for this process. Thus, neurophysiological studies have experimentally shown that this process includes two stages – categorization of objects by shape, followed by the second stage – activation of attention specifically to animate objects.
Types of animacy
De Swart and de Hoop emphasize the importance of distinguishing between three types of animacy: biological, conceptual, and grammatical. Each of these types plays a unique role in understanding how humans perceive and express the distinction between animate and inanimate entities.Biological animacy refers to entities that are biologically alive and is defined by physical properties like the capacity to die. Living entities, such as humans and animals, are considered biologically "animate," whereas non-living entities, like rocks or water, are classified as "inanimate." Plants, though living, are often considered "inanimate." This type of animacy forms the foundation of how humans instinctively categorize the world around them.
Conceptual animacy is based on the speaker's perception and cultural background. It concerns what is perceived as alive, influenced by the "ego's" perspective and societal beliefs. This type often diverges from biological animacy. For example, in some cultures or languages, inanimate objects like the sun or mountains are considered "animate" due to mythology or cultural beliefs. Another example is the term bot, which is animate in many languages due to human-like behavior of a bot. Conceptual animacy reflects how humans personify or attribute agency to non-living entities.
Grammatical animacy demonstrates how biological and conceptual animacy are represented in the grammar of languages. It operates as a semantic feature or condition influencing linguistic structures, such as verb agreement or case marking. For instance, in Russian, animacy distinctions affect object marking in sentences; animate nouns, such as humans and animals, are treated differently than inanimate nouns. This type of animacy illustrates the interaction between cognitive perceptions and linguistic systems.
The animacy hierarchy is widely applied in linguistic analysis to explain various phenomena. Animate entities are more likely to act as agents or subjects in sentences, receive distinct grammatical treatment in case marking or agreement, and be referenced explicitly in discourse. Additionally, animacy hierarchies are not static; cultural factors or temporary discourse contexts can shift these classifications.
Although animacy distinctions appear universally across languages, their specific implementation varies. For example, Navajo uses animacy to govern verb marking, while Slavic languages reflect animacy distinctions in noun declensions. However, the universality of animacy as a linguistic feature is debated due to its variability across languages. Cultural and functional factors can lead to unique animacy hierarchies, showing that animacy is both a universal and context-dependent concept.
Examples
The distinction between he, she, and other personal pronouns, on one hand, and it, on the other hand is a distinction in animacy in English and in many Indo-European languages. The same can be said about distinction between who and what. Some languages, such as Turkish, Georgian, spoken Finnish and Italian, do not distinguish between s/he and it. In Finnish, there is a distinction in animacy between hän, "he/she", and se, "it", but in spoken Finnish se can mean "he/she". English shows a similar lack of distinction between they animate and they inanimate in the plural.There is another example of how animacy plays some role in English. For example, the higher animacy a referent has, the less preferable it is to use the preposition of for possession :
- My face is correct while the face of mine would sound strange.
- The man's face and the face of the man are both correct, but the former is preferred.
- The clock's face and the face of the clock are both correct.
Proto-Indo-European language
Because of the similarities in morphology of feminine and masculine grammatical gender inflections in Indo-European languages, there is a theory that in an early stage, the Proto-Indo-European language had only two grammatical genders: "animate" and "inanimate/neuter"; the most obvious difference being that inanimate/neuter nouns used the same form for the nominative, vocative, and accusative noun cases. The distinction was preserved in Anatolian languages like Hittite, all of which are now extinct.The animate gender would then later, after the separation of the Anatolian languages, have developed into the feminine and masculine genders. The plural of neuter/inanimate nouns is believed to have had the same ending as collective nouns in the singular, and some words with the collective noun ending in singular were later to become words with the feminine gender. Traces can be found in Ancient Greek in which the singular form of verbs was used when they referred to neuter words in plural. In many Indo-European languages, such as Latin and the Slavic languages, the plural ending of many neuter words in the merged nominative–accusative–vocative corresponds to the feminine singular nominative form.
Navajo (Diné)
Like most other 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 to least animate :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, either noun can occur in the first position. Both sentences and are correct. The yi- prefix on the verb indicates that the first noun is the subject and bi- indicates that the second noun is the subject.
Sentence, however, sounds wrong to most Navajo speakers because the less animate noun occurs before the more animate noun:
In order to express that idea, the more animate noun must occur first, as in sentence :
There is evidence suggesting that the word order itself is not the important factor. Instead, the verb construction usually interpreted as the passive voice instead indicates that the more animate noun allowed the less animate noun to perform the action. The idea is that things ranked higher in animacy are presumed to be in control of the situation, and that the less-animate thing can only act if the more-animate thing permits it.
Japanese
Although nouns in Japanese are not marked for animacy, it has two existential/possessive verbs; one for implicitly animate nouns and one for implicitly inanimate nouns. The verb iru is used to show the existence or possession of an animate noun. The verb aru is used to show the existence or possession of an inanimate noun.An animate noun, here 'cat', is marked as the subject of the verb with the subject particle ga, but no topic or location is marked. That implies the noun is indefinite and merely exists.
In the second example, a topic is introduced, in this case "I", with the topic particle wa. The animate noun is again marked with a subject particle, and no location is denoted. That implies that the topic owns or is holding onto the noun.
In the third example, the noun is marked as the topic while a location, here the top of a chair, is marked with the location particle ni. That implies that the noun is a definite noun and is at the specified location.
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.
In some cases in which "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 or with the inanimate verb.