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It seems that David's question is not really about "exceptions to
the animacy scale" – because the scale itself implies no claim.
There are various claims about grammatical coding that reference a
scale such as "human > (non-human) animal > inanimate",
especially with regard to plural marking, object flagging, and
indexing (subject, object, and others).<br>
<br>
But Japanese iru vs. aru, or English she/he vs. it, has nothing to
do with this scale – these are contrasting forms whose occurrence
depends on a subclassification of nouns or nominal referents, i.e.
they fall in the domain of nominal classification (or nomification).<br>
<br>
It seems that "exceptions" become relevant because there is a
general feeling that humanness (or animacy, i.e. human + nonhuman
animal) is THE decisive factor in many cases (whether in
animacy-scale effects or in nomification patters). But this is
itself a claim which may not be correct. In Dravidian linguistics,
there is a tradition of distinguishing a class of "rational" nouns
or referents (thus explicitly including personified nonhumans), so
maybe the treatment of humans and higher animals in these languages
is just an effect of their rational nature.<br>
<br>
Maybe for typological purposes, one could set up a notion of a
"human-core class", i.e. a class of forms that contains all typical
humans, and then ask for each language which other kinds of nouns or
nominal referents a language puts in a human-core class if it has
one (and also which kinds of atypical human referents it does not
put in that class).<br>
<br>
David's question would then be: Are there languages that put nouns
or nominal referents in a human-core class based on their human-like
shape? (though one would have to be careful to distinguish between
shape and other human-like properties, e.g. active behaviour in the
case of robots, and passive behaviour in the case of dolls)<br>
<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 26.11.18 20:27, David Gil wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:90376811-4c31-685f-afb4-596433ce7ec7@shh.mpg.de"
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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 moz-do-not-send="true" 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
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
Institut fuer Anglistik
IPF 141199
D-04081 Leipzig
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