[Lingtyp] animacy hierarchy: exceptions based on shape

Tue Nov 27 06:05:17 UTC 2018

Hi David, would Thomas the Tank Engine bring something to your reflection on animacy hierarchy ? 
https://goo.gl/images/yGy2mN
It seems to me that languages are much less driven by what looks like real-world constraints on animacy than we think, having in mind the kind of language used in standard descriptive utterances among adults in western societies. What looks like violations (speaking to your computer, thinking that this special gift from your departed grandma protects you, reassuring your child that their teddy bear is not hurt etc) might just be evidence for the fact that animacy is an attribute, not an inalienable property of référents themselves (therefore that it is what we predicate of entities that makes them animate or not): a possible caption to the linked picture would be : Thomas the tank engine was so proud that the mayor of London had organized a welcome ceremony for him in Victoria station. 
And if this type of language use falls out of the scope of your enquiry, I guess looking at texts describing shamanic practice, or referring to animism or totemism by culturally-anchored speakers  of the corresponding languages would be relevant ?
Best
Amina

> On 27 Nov 2018, at 06:12, Randy J. LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi David,
> In English the use of “inanimate” it as opposed to animate he or she is based to a large extent on familiarity with the gender of the referent, so babies where one doesn’t yet know the gender, or bugs and slugs, etc., where it doesn’t matter, take it because the use of he or she would require the person to know the gender/sex of the referent, though in some cases one can use an unmarked conventionalised gender for some animals.
> 
> All the best,
> Randy
> -----
> Randy J. LaPolla, PhD FAHA （羅仁地）
> Professor of Linguistics, with courtesy appointment in Chinese, School of Humanities 
> Nanyang Technological University
> HSS-03-45, 14 Nanyang Drive | Singapore 637332
> http://randylapolla.net/
> Most recent books:
> The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd Edition (2017)
> https://www.routledge.com/The-Sino-Tibetan-Languages-2nd-Edition/LaPolla-Thurgood/p/book/9781138783324
> Sino-Tibetan Linguistics (2018)
> https://www.routledge.com/Sino-Tibetan-Linguistics/LaPolla/p/book/9780415577397
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 27 Nov 2018, at 3:27 AM, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 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
>> Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20181127/dc038815/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image1.jpeg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 647302 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20181127/dc038815/attachment.jpeg>