Animacy is a grammatical category, usually of nouns, which influences the form a verb takes when it is associated with that noun. A grammatical category is a general term. ... Noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ...

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. This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... In general, a reference is something that refers or points to something else, or acts as a connection or a link between two things. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. ... Implicational hierarchy is a chain of implicational universals. ...

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. This article deals with features of the spoken Finnish language, specifically how it is spoken in Greater Helsinki capital region and the cities in the Central Finnish dialectal area, such as Jyväskylä, Lahti, Hyvinkää, and Hämeenlinna. ...

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: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

• 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. Southern Athabaskan (also Apachean) refers to members of the Athabaskan language family (including Navajo) spoken in the Northern American Southwest. ... Links Western Apache-English Dictionary (White Mountain) White Mountain Apache Tribe (Arizona Intertribal Council) San Carlos Apache Tribe (Arizona Intertribal Council) Tonto Apache Tribe (Arizona Intertribal Council) Yavapai-Apache Nation Official Website Yavapai-Apache Nation (Arizona Intertribal Council) White Mountain Apache Tribe White Mountain Apache photographs map of Fort Apache... Reading Adahooniigii — The Navajo Language Monthly 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). It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages (the majority of Athabaskan languages are spoken... Tamil ( ; IPA ) is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamils in India and Sri Lanka, with smaller communities of speakers in many other countries. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ...

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): Reading Adahooniigii — The Navajo Language Monthly 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). It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages (the majority of Athabaskan languages are spoken...

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.

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

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

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 existental or 有る when possessive) is used to show the existence or possession of an inanimate noun. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... 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. ...

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. 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. ...

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.

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.

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]).

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).

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 other animate nouns and all inanimate nouns coincides with the nominative.

For example, animate noun брат [brat] "a brother" in nominative case, inanimate noun кран [kran] "a crane" in accusative case:

And on the contrary, брат in accusative case, кран in nominative case:

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: Split ergativity is shown by languages that have a partly ergative behaviour, but employ another syntax or morphology (usually accusative) in some contexts. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Thematic role. ...

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

• Grammatical gender
• Noun class
• Classifier (linguistics)