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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-font-family:
Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US"
lang="EN-US">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></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-font-family:
Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US"
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-font-family:
Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US"
lang="EN-US">The animacy
hierarchy is primarily of an ontological nature; shape doesn't
usually matter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>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 style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-font-family:
Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US"
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-font-family:
Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US"
lang="EN-US">What would such a
shape-based exception to the animacy hierachy look like?<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>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:"Arial",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New
Roman";
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:
minor-bidi">emphasis on its human-like behavior", <i>aru</i>
entails
"emphasis on its status as a nonliving thing".<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>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?).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>On the
other hand, I'm guessing that a human-like statue could never
take <i>iru </i>(is
this correct?).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>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.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A bona-fide shape-based
exception to the
animacy hierarchy would be one in which all human-shaped objects
— robots,
dolls, statues, whatever — behaved like humans with respect to
the relevant grammatical
property.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>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></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:
minor-bidi;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New
Roman";mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:
minor-bidi;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New
Roman";mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi">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></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:
minor-bidi;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New
Roman";mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi"> </span></p>
<span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times
New Roman";mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language:
EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">More generally, it seems to be the
case that
grammar doesn't really care much about shapes.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>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.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>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>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
</pre>
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