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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">David wrote: “More generally, it seems to be the case that grammar doesn't really care much about shapes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">Here are just two possibly useful references:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Friedrich, Paul. 1970. Shape in grammar.
<i>Language</i> 46-2, 379-407.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Watkins, Laurel J. 1976. Shape vs. position: classificatory verbs in North America. Paper presented at the
<i>1976 LSA Annual Meeting</i>, Philadelphia.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">J. Rijkhoff - Associate Professor</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black">Linguistics, Aarhus University<br>
Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2, Building 1485-621<br>
DK-8000 Aarhus C, DENMARK<br>
Phone: (+45) 87162143<br>
E-mail: </span></i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><a href="mailto:linjr@cc.au.dk"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#954F72;text-decoration:none">linjr@cc.au.dk</span></i></a></span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"><br>
URL: http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/linjr@cc.au.dk</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:black">From: </span></b><span style="color:black">Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of David Gil <gil@shh.mpg.de><br>
<b>Date: </b>Monday, 26 November 2018 at 20.27<br>
<b>To: </b>"lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Subject: </b>[Lingtyp] animacy hierarchy: exceptions based on shape<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">I am looking for examples of exceptions to the animacy hierarchy that are motivated by the shape or other spatial configurational properties of the relevant referents.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The animacy hierarchy is primarily of an ontological nature; shape doesn't usually matter. A slug is animate even though its shape is ill-defined and amorphous, while a stone
statue is inanimate even if it represents an identifiable person. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">What would such a shape-based exception to the animacy hierachy look like? In Japanese (according to Wikipedia, I hope this is right), there are two verbs of existence,
<i>iru</i> for animates, <i>aru</i> for inanimates, but <i>robotto</i> ('robot') can occur with either of the two: while
<i>iru</i> entails "</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">emphasis on its human-like behavior",
<i>aru</i> entails "emphasis on its status as a nonliving thing". This description seems to suggest that it's the robot's sentience that is of relevance, not its human shape: presumably, even if the robot assumed the form of a sphere with blinking lights,
if its behaviour were sufficiently humanlike it could take <i>iru</i> (speakers of Japanese: is this correct?). On the other hand, I'm guessing that a human-like statue could never take
<i>iru </i>(is this correct?). So if my factual assumptions about Japanese are correct, the distribution of
<i>iru</i> and <i>aru</i> does not offer a shape-based exception to the animacy hierarchy. A bona-fide shape-based exception to the animacy hierarchy would be one in which all human-shaped objects
</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">—</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> robots, dolls, statues, whatever
</span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">—</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> behaved like humans with respect to the relevant grammatical property. Or conversely, a case in which an animate being that somehow managed to assume
the form of a typical inanimate object would be treated as inanimate.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">I would like to claim that such shape-based exceptions to the animacy hierarchy simply do not exist, but I am running this past the collective knowledge of LINGTYP members first, to make
sure I'm not missing out on anything.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">More generally, it seems to be the case that grammar doesn't really care much about shapes. The closest thing to grammaticalized shape that I can think of is numeral classifiers,
which typically refer to categories such as "elongated object", "small compact object", and so forth. But these straddle the boundary between grammar and lexicon, and, more importantly, are typically organized paradigmatically, rather than hierarchically,
as is the case for animacy categories.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11.0pt">
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<pre>-- <o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>David Gil<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre><o:p> </o:p></pre>
<pre>Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre><o:p> </o:p></pre>
<pre>Email: <a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a><o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre>Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816<o:p></o:p></pre>
<pre><o:p> </o:p></pre>
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