<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><b>Sumerian</b> distinguishes between human and non-human, also called "Personenklasse" and "Sachklasse" in German-language literature. Pronouns, question words, possessive agreement depending on the possessee's class, and also certain case clitics depend on the noun class. Apart from human beings and gods, the human class also sometimes includes statues (e.g. both <i>alan=ani</i> ‘statue=POSS.3SG.H’ as well as <i>alan=bi</i> ‘statue=POSS.3SG.NH’, both meaning ‘his statue’ can be found in texts), while the words <i>saĝ</i> ‘slave’ (lit. ‘head’) and <i>géme</i> ‘slave woman’ can also be treated as non-human (cf. Jagersma 2010:103, Foxvog 2016:22).<div>But the association of statues with the human class might not be simply due to shape, but due to them representing actual humans or gods, or simply out of respect, I imagine. Just like we can refer to a statue as a "he" or "she" in <b>English</b> and many other European languages (but then we would probably also refer to it by the name, e.g. Leibniz).</div><div><br></div><div>Similar with anthropomorph robots (androids) and robots in general if they're seen as persons instead of machines (ample examples from science-fiction where people switch from "it" to "he" or "she" upon realizing that the robot/android/cyborg is actually equal to a human and a proper individual, I could name at least three <i>Star Trek: TNG</i> episodes here). Even with figurines, plushies and dolls, we would often use a gendered pronoun if the gender is clear. This is not primarly due to their shape, I'd argue. An old volleyball with a face painted on it, can become a "he" if treated as a(n imaginary) friend (cf. <i>Cast Away</i>, 2010).</div><div><br></div><div>It is difficult to think of an example, where shape is disassociated from the representation of an object, e.g. a human-shaped ginseng root, a starfish? Not sure...<br></div><div><br></div><div><u>Sources:</u></div><div>Foxvog, Daniel A. 2016. <i>Introduction to Sumerian Grammar.</i> Online document, UCLA. (<a href="https://cdli.ucla.edu/pubs/cdlp/cdlp0002_20160104.pdf">https://cdli.ucla.edu/pubs/cdlp/cdlp0002_20160104.pdf</a>)<br></div><div>Jagersma, Abraham Hendrik. 2010. <i>A Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian.</i> Doctoral thesis, Leiden: Leiden University. (<a href="https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/16107">https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/16107</a>)</div><div><br></div><div>— André Müller</div><div>________________________________<br></div><div>PhD Student</div><div>Department of Comparative Linuguistics</div><div>University of Zurich<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">Am Mo., 26. Nov. 2018 um 20:27 Uhr schrieb David Gil <<a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>>:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<p>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif" 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" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US">The animacy
hierarchy is primarily of an ontological nature; shape doesn't
usually matter.<span> </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> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif" lang="EN-US">What would such a
shape-based exception to the animacy hierachy look like?<span> </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>emphasis on its human-like behavior", <i>aru</i>
entails
"emphasis on its status as a nonliving thing".<span> </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>
</span>On the
other hand, I'm guessing that a human-like statue could never
take <i>iru </i>(is
this correct?).<span> </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> </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> </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> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>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> </span></p>
<span>More generally, it seems to be the
case that
grammar doesn't really care much about shapes.<span>
</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> </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="m_2456534335303291978moz-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="m_2456534335303291978moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" target="_blank">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
</pre>
</div>
_______________________________________________<br>
Lingtyp mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br>
<a href="http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a><br>
</blockquote></div>