[Lingtyp] animacy hierarchy: exceptions based on shape

[Jan Rijkhoff]

David wrote: “More generally, it seems to be the case that grammar doesn't really care much about shapes.”

Here are just two possibly useful references:

  *   Friedrich, Paul. 1970. Shape in grammar. Language 46-2, 379-407.
  *   Watkins, Laurel J. 1976. Shape vs. position: classificatory verbs in North America. Paper presented at the 1976 LSA Annual Meeting, Philadelphia.

Best,
J. Rijkhoff - Associate Professor
Linguistics, Aarhus University
Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2, Building 1485-621
DK-8000 Aarhus C, DENMARK
Phone: (+45) 87162143
E-mail: linjr at cc.au.dk<mailto:linjr at cc.au.dk>
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From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
Date: Monday, 26 November 2018 at 20.27
To: "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org" <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: [Lingtyp] animacy hierarchy: exceptions based on shape

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.

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.

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, iru for animates, aru for inanimates, but robotto ('robot') can occur with either of the two: while iru entails "emphasis on its human-like behavior", aru 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 iru (speakers of Japanese: is this correct?).  On the other hand, I'm guessing that a human-like statue could never take iru (is this correct?).  So if my factual assumptions about Japanese are correct, the distribution of iru and aru 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 — robots, dolls, statues, whatever — 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.

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.

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.

--

David Gil



Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution

Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany



Email: gil at shh.mpg.de<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>

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