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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">Dear all,<br>
</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"><br>
</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">I would like to
thank everybody who responded to my query last week on
exceptions to the
animacy hierarchy based on shape (appended below).<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In the rather lengthy
summary that follows, I
first explain the reason behind the query, and then discuss some
of the results
that emerged from your responses.</span></p>
<p>
</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 motivation
for the query is in joint work by Yeshayahu Shen and myself on
how we
conceptualize and talk about hybrid creatures such as centaurs
and mermaids —
see reference below.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One
of our
experimental findings was that when people are asked to describe
novel hybrids,
they tend to do so in accordance with the animacy hierarchy; for
example, when
presented with a composite image of a man and an eagle, they are
more likely to
say "man with an eagle's head and wings" (where the NP is headed
by a
human noun) than "eagle with a man's torso and legs" (where the
NP is
headed by a noun that lower on the animacy hierarchy).<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However, more recent work
has led us to
modify the above conclusion; it now seems to us to be the case
that the
hierarchy that governs the way we describe hybrids is, at least
in part, not
the familiar ontologically-based animacy hierarchy, but rather
an alternative
"schematological" hierarchy, based on shape, which, simplifying
considerably, looks roughly as follows:<br
style="mso-special-character:line-break">
</span></p>
<p>
</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">HUMANOIDS:<br>
entities with head, torso, two arms, two legs, face with sensory
organs,
lateral symmetry</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">(e.g. humans,
some apes, some robots)<br>
<br>
SUB-HUMANOIDS:<br>
entities with head, torso, appendages, lateral symmetry</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">(e.g. dogs, birds,
cars)</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</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">SUB-SUB-HUMANOIDS</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">entities with
head, torso</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">(e.g. jellyfish, trees,
umbrellas)</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</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">OTHER</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</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">Although resembling
the familiar animacy hierarchy in that it "begins" with humans
and
gradually peels away the human properties, the above
schematological hierarchy
differs from it in that it is based not on "deep" ontological
properties
but rather on properties pertaining to relatively more
superficial shape.</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</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">To the best of my
knowledge, there are no reports in the linguistic literature of
grammatical
patterns being governed by the above schematological hierarchy;
as far as I
have been able to ascertain, all patterns argued to be sensitive
to animacy seem
to involve the familiar ontologically-based hierarchy and not
have anything to
do with shape.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The
purpose of this query
was to see if anybody might be familiar with exceptions to the
animacy
hierarchy possibly motivated by the schematological hierarchy;
however, so far no
such cases have been offered.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><br>
</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"><br>
</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">My hope was that some attested grammatical patterns
might provide at least some additional support for the
schematological hiertarchy. However, if indeed
no such case can be found, then our study of hybrids would seem
to offer a
rather curious instance of a grammatical hierarchy being
revealed solely by a specific
experimental task involving a rather esoteric stimulus set —
which is a state of affairs
I wouldn't quite know what to make of.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>
<p>
</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">Some comments on selected
points raised in the discussion follow below (with apologies to
those whose
contributions I didn't mention).</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</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">There was some discussion
of the fact that in Japanese, robots can cooccur with either of
two existence
verbs, <i>iru</i>, which selects for animates, and <i>aru</i>,
which selects
for inanimates, and there was disagreement amongst speakers of
Japanese with
regard to the crucial case of whether statues of people,
ontologically
inanimate but schematologically humanoid, could cooccur with <i>iru</i>:
while
some speakers rejected the possibility, others had a more
nuanced take.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yukinori
Kimoto, in an offline communication,
wrote that </span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p><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><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi">"Japanese
linguists seem to agree that the distinction is made according
to whether the referent has an internal potential to move
autonomously. So you can express "there is a ship (moving)" with
"iru".<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The judgement is
ultimately influenced by the speaker's own construal, but robots
can basically move by themselves, so "iru" is acceptable, (but
"iru" sounds strange for industrial robots, which do not move,
fixed to one place, but a rumba moving in your room can take
"iru").<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yes, statues
might take "iru", but it is just marginally acceptable. You can
say "dozo ga iru" (statue NOM exist), in a "spooky" context,
like, if you unexpectedly find a statue. [...] You can use "iru"
with "dozo" (statue) like in the "spooky" context where you are
walking in the campus at night, and surprisingly you find
something like a human, which turns out to be a statue."</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt
229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt
595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt"><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">Thus,
the distinction
seems to revolve around the ability to move autonomously, while
shape is
irrelevant except as an indirect predictor of whether the object
in question possesses
such an ability.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt
229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt
595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt"><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">More
generally, I
agree with </span><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">Östen Dahl</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">, who wrote that</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi"> "The
reason why we might want to regard a statue as animate is not
primarily that it is shaped like a human being but that we
either take it to represent a human or to be capable of acting
and perceiving."</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p><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><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:
minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi">Or
as Sebastian Nordhoff put it</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p><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><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:
minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi">"It
would seem that "(potentially) having a soul" would be more
important than geometrical "humanoid" shape."</span></p>
<p><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi">So
the bottom line is that the schematological hierarchy proposed
above seems to have little if any grammatical manifestations in
human languages.</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</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">On a somewhat
different note, Martin Haspelmath argued that binary contrasts
such as
Japanese <i>iru/aru</i> are more appropriately analyzed as
reflecting nominal
classification rather than true hierarchical organization.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My response to this would
be to invoke Martin's
own distinction between language-specific descriptive categories
and cross-linguistic
comparative concepts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Internally
to
Japanese, I would agree that the <i>iru/aru </i>distinction
does not constitute
evidence for a hierarchy; in order to have a language-specific
hierarchy, the
language would have to make reference to three or more distinct
values, such as,
for example, in Navajo, where an animacy hierarchy governs the
choice of clausal
voice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However, as
typologists, it does
in fact makes sense to posit an animacy hierarchy as a
comparative category, reflecting
the different cutoff points that various languages make, even if
some of the
relevant categories happen, within individual languages, to be
binary, such as
is the case for the <i>iru/aru </i>distinction in Japanese.</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</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">Several respondents
mentioned numeral (and other) classifiers, and offered
interesting insights as
to how these work.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However,
such
classifiers fail to fit the bill for the following reason.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To the extent that they
make reference to
properties involving shape, they refer to indivisible atomic
shapes such as
"long thin object", "small compact object" and the like —
not to the kind of complex shapes that form the basis of the
schematological
hierarchy above.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps
because of
their atomic nature, classifiers do not seem to organize
themselves in terms resembling
an animacy (or schematological) hierarchy, in which types are
arranged in terms
of increasing/decreasing complexity.<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But
I'm open to counterexamples on this, and Daniel Ross has offered
some
suggestive leads on gender resolution in Bantu needing further
exploration.</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:
minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US">Related to
this, Yukinori Kimoto wrote that </span></p>
<p><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US">"</span><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:
"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi">Japanese classifiers do have a
hierarchical structure, but the higher-order distinction is
between human, non-human animate, and inanimate, so again it
follows animacy. Yo Matsumoto in an article says (translation
mine from Japanese):</span><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US"> </span><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:
"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi">"The most basic semantic
distinction in Japanese classifier system is animacy.
Classifiers are divided into those used for animate things and
those for inanimate. The first is further divided into those
used for humans and those for non-human animals. Each of the
three classes has the superordinate classifier: -ri/-nin (for
human in general) -hiki (for animals in general), and -tsu
(inanimate in general)" (parentheses mine)".</span></p>
<p><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US">However, no evidence is
offered for the hierarchic nature of the "higher-order"
distinction between </span><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi">human,
non-human animate, and inanimate.</span><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US"><span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(And in any case, even if
it turns out that there is hierarchical structure, it would seem
to follow an ontological rather than a shape-based hierarchy.) </span></p>
<p><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US">Finally, Eitan Grossman
offered a plausible frequency-based explanation for WHY the
schematological hierarchy is not as grammaticalized as the
ontologically based animacy hierarchy:<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>we talk less about the
shapes of things than about their deeper ontological properties,
and hence shapes have less of a chance to undergo
grammaticalization. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US"></span><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">Thanks to all
those who contributed to the discussion:<span
style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Östen Dahl, Victor Friedman, Eitan Grossman, Martin
Haspelmath, Joo Ian,
Yukinori Kimoto, Amina Mettouchi, André Müller, Randy J.
LaPolla, Sebastian
Nordhoff, Paolo Ramat, Jan Rijkhoff, Daniel Ross, </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">Steven
Schaufele,
Tasaku Tsunoda, Kazuha Watanabe.</span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</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">Reference:</span></p>
<p class="ReferencesT"
style="margin-left:27.35pt;text-indent:-27.35pt"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:
minor-bidi" lang="EN-US">Shen, Yeshayahu and David Gil (2017)
"How Language Influences
the Way We Categorize Hybrids", in H. Cohen and C. Lefebvre eds,
<i>Handbook
of Categorization in Cognitive Science</i>, Second Edition,
Elsevier,
Amsterdam, 1177-1200.</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>
<span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US"></span><br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 27/11/2018 03:27, David Gil wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:90376811-4c31-685f-afb4-596433ce7ec7@shh.mpg.de">
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<p>
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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">--
</pre>
</blockquote>
<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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