Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is.
[1] 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.
Each of these types plays a unique role in understanding how humans perceive and express the distinction between animate and inanimate entities.
It operates as a semantic feature or condition influencing linguistic structures, such as verb agreement or case marking.
The animacy hierarchy (e.g., human > animal > inanimate) is widely applied in linguistic analysis to explain various phenomena.
Additionally, animacy hierarchies are not static; cultural factors or temporary discourse contexts can shift these classifications.
Animacy as a Feature (AnimF) operates as a semantic characteristic that influences specific word or morpheme classes.
It is used to encode grammatical values such as person, number, case, and gender, introducing a semantic distinction based on animacy.
AnimF may involve changing the shape of a word or adding morphological material to reflect whether an entity is animate or inanimate.
For instance, certain languages use different case markers or allomorphs for animate versus inanimate nouns.
AnimC showcases how semantic properties like animacy can streamline linguistic structures and reduce morphological complexity.
It may include pure alternation, adjustments in grammatical features, or techniques to either create or avoid syncretism (merging distinct forms).
These involve multiple processes, such as combining morphological and phonological strategies, to mark animacy distinctions.
Phonological changes such as vowel alternation, nasalization, tone, stress, and glottalization are used to express animacy distinctions.
These combine two or more of the above methods, such as blending morphological and morphophonemic strategies, to create more nuanced animacy markers.
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.
Traces can be found in Ancient Greek in which the singular form of verbs was used when they referred to neuter words in plural.
猫NekocatはwaTOP椅子の上isu no uechair-GEN-above/onにniLOCいるiru.to exist猫 は {椅子の上} に いるNeko wa {isu no ue} ni iru.cat TOP chair-GEN-above/on LOC {to exist}'The cat is on the chair.
'石IshistoneはwaTOP椅子の上isu no uechair-GEN-above/onにniLOCあるaru.to exist石 は 椅子の上 に あるIshi wa {isu no ue} ni aru.stone TOP chair-GEN-above/on LOC {to exist}'The stone is on the chair.
ロボットRobottorobotがgaSBJいるiru.to existロボット が いるRobotto ga iru.robot SBJ {to exist}'There is a robot' (emphasis on its human-like behavior).ロボットRobottorobotがgaSBJあるaru.to existロボット が あるRobotto ga aru.robot SBJ {to exist}'There is a robot' (emphasis on its status as a nonliving thing).The Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands agree in animacy in their case systems.
[6] Animacy functions as a subgender through which noun cases intersect in a phenomenon called syncretism, which here can be either nominative-accusative or genitive-accusative.
[7] For example, Russian has "common gender" nouns that refer to traditionally masculine roles but act as syntactically feminine.
Spanish personal pronouns are generally omitted if the subject of the sentence is obvious, but when they are explicitly stated, they are used only with people or humanized animals or things.
Spanish direct-object pronouns (me, te, lo, la, se, nos, os, los, las) do not differentiate between animate and inanimate entities, and only the third persons have a gender distinction.
Thus, Arabic المهندسون يطيرون إلى ألمانيا (Al-muhandisūn yaṭīrūn ’ilā ’Almāniyā, "The engineers fly to Germany") is masculine plural agreement, but الطائرات تطير إلى ألمانيا (Al-ṭā’irāt taṭīr ’ilā ’Almāniyā, "The planes fly to Germany") is feminine singular.
The hierarchy of animacy generally, but not always, is ordered: 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 overlap, with a class of nouns near the middle of the hierarchy being marked for both the agent and patient roles.
A noun essentially requires the traits of animacy in order to receive the role of Actor and Experiencer.