Product Code Database
Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how Sentience or life the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around the globe and is a distinction acquired as early as six months of age.
Concepts of animacy constantly vary beyond a simple animate and inanimate binary; many languages function off an hierarchical general animacy scale that ranks animacy as a "matter of gradience". Typically (with some variation of order and of where the cutoff for animacy occurs), the scale ranks humans above animals, then plants, natural forces, concrete objects, and abstract objects, in that order. In referring to humans, this scale contains a hierarchy of persons, ranking the first- and second-person above the third person, partly a product of empathy, involving the speaker and interlocutor.
It is obvious that the ability to distinguish between animate and inanimate is very important from an evolutionary point of view. In order to survive, an animal must be able to quickly and accurately distinguish between its sexual partners, rivals, predators, animals that it eats, etc., and inanimate objects. As for people, the ability to distinguish between animate and inanimate arises in infancy, even before children have mastered speech. Apparently, there is a brain mechanism responsible for this process. Thus, neurophysiological studies have experimentally shown that this process includes two stages - categorization of objects by shape, followed by the second stage - activation of attention specifically to animate objects (the temporoparietal areas of the cortex are responsible for the first stage, and the frontal areas are responsible for the second).
Biological animacy refers to entities that are biologically alive and is defined by physical properties like the capacity to die. Living entities, such as humans, animals, and plants, are considered biologically "animate," whereas non-living entities, like rocks or water, are classified as "inanimate." This type of animacy forms the foundation of how humans instinctively categorize the world around them.
Conceptual animacy is based on the speaker’s perception and cultural background. It concerns what is perceived as alive, influenced by the “ego’s” perspective and societal beliefs. This type often diverges from biological animacy. For example, in some cultures or languages, inanimate objects like the sun or mountains are considered "animate" due to mythology or cultural beliefs. Another example is the term bot, which is animate in many languages due to human-like behavior of a bot. Conceptual animacy reflects how humans personify or attribute agency to non-living entities.
Grammatical animacy demonstrates how biological and conceptual animacy are represented in the grammar of languages. It operates as a semantic feature or condition influencing linguistic structures, such as verb agreement or case marking. For instance, in Russian, animacy distinctions affect object marking in sentences; animate nouns, such as humans and animals, are treated differently than inanimate nouns. This type of animacy illustrates the interaction between cognitive perceptions and linguistic systems.
The animacy hierarchy (e.g., human > animal > inanimate) is widely applied in linguistic analysis to explain various phenomena. Animate entities are more likely to act as agents or subjects in sentences (agentivity), receive distinct grammatical treatment in case marking or agreement, and be referenced explicitly in discourse. Additionally, animacy hierarchies are not static; cultural factors or temporary discourse contexts can shift these classifications.
Although animacy distinctions appear universally across languages, their specific implementation varies. For example, Navajo uses animacy to govern verb marking, while Slavic languages reflect animacy distinctions in noun declensions. However, the universality of animacy as a linguistic feature is debated due to its variability across languages. Cultural and functional factors can lead to unique animacy hierarchies, showing that animacy is both a universal and context-dependent concept.
There is another example of how animacy plays some role in English. For example, the higher animacy a referent has, the less preferable it is to use the preposition of for possession (that can also be interpreted in terms of alienable or inalienable possession):
Examples of languages in which an animacy hierarchy is important include the Totonac language in Mexico and the Southern Athabaskan languages (such as Western Apache and Navajo language) whose animacy hierarchy has been the subject of intense study. The Tamil language has a noun classification based on animacy.
The animate gender would then later, after the separation of the Anatolian languages, have developed into the feminine and masculine genders. The plural of neuter/inanimate nouns is believed to have had the same ending as in the singular, and some words with the collective noun ending in singular were later to become words with the feminine gender. Traces can be found in Ancient Greek in which the singular form of verbs was used when they referred to neuter words in plural. In many Indo-European languages, such as Latin and the Slavic languages, the plural ending of many neuter words in the merged nominative–accusative–vocative corresponds to the feminine singular nominative form.
Generally, the most animate noun in a sentence must occur first while the noun with lesser animacy occurs second. If both nouns are equal in animacy, either noun can occur in the first position. Both sentences (1) and (2) are correct. The yi- prefix on the verb indicates that the first noun is the subject and bi- indicates that the second noun is the subject.
Sentence (3), however, sounds wrong to most Navajo speakers because the less animate noun occurs before the more animate noun:
In order to express that idea, the more animate noun must occur first, as in sentence (4):
There is evidence suggesting that the word order itself is not the important factor. Instead, the verb construction usually interpreted as the passive voice (e.g. "the girl was pecked by the bird") instead indicates that the more animate noun allowed the less animate noun to perform the action (e.g. "the girl let herself be pecked by the bird"). The idea is that things ranked higher in animacy are presumed to be in control of the situation, and that the less-animate thing can only act if the more-animate thing permits it.
An animate noun, here 'cat', is marked as the subject of the verb with the subject particle ga (が), but no topic or location is marked. That implies the noun is indefinite and merely exists.
In the second example, a topic is introduced, in this case "I", with the topic particle wa (は). The animate noun is again marked with a subject particle, and no location is denoted. That implies that the topic owns or is holding onto the noun.
In the third example, the noun is marked as the topic (and by default functions as the subject of the verb) while a location, here the top of a chair, is marked with the location particle ni (に). That implies that the noun is a definite noun and is at the specified location.
In all these cases, if the noun is not animate, such as a stone, instead of a cat, the verb iru must be replaced with the verb aru (ある or 有る possessive / 在る existential,).
In some cases in which "natural" animacy is ambiguous, whether a noun is animate or not is the decision of the speaker, as in the case of a robot, which could be correlated with the animate verb (to signify sentience or anthropomorphism) or with the inanimate verb (to emphasise that is a non-living thing).
Animacy functions as a subgender through which noun cases intersect in a phenomenon called syncretism, which here can be either grammatical case. Inanimate nouns have accusative forms that take on the same forms as their nominative, with animate nouns marked by having their accusative forms resemble the genitive.
For example, syncretism in Polish language conditioned by referential animacy results in forms like the following:
That syncretism also occurs when restricted by declension class, resulting in syncretism in multiple Pronoun, such as the Russian language reflexive pronoun себя (), personal pronouns, and the indefinite interrogative and relative pronoun kto.
In their plural forms, nouns of all genders may distinguish the categories of animate vs. inanimate by that syncretism, but only masculine nouns of the first declension (and their modifiers) show it in the singular (Frarie 1992:12), and other declensions and genders of nouns "restrict (morphological) expression of animacy to the plural" (Frarie 1992:47).
Animacy occurs as a subgender of nouns and modifiers (and pronouns only when adjectival) and is primarily reflected in modifier-head agreement (as opposed to subject-predicate agreement).
| Veo esa catedral. | "I can see that cathedral." | (inanimate direct object) |
| Veo a esa persona. | "I can see that person." | (animate direct object) |
| Vengo a España. | "I come to Spain." | (a used in its literal sense) |
The usage is standard and is found around the Spanish-speaking world.
Spanish direct-object pronouns (me, te, lo, la, se, nos, os, los, las) do not differentiate between animate and inanimate entities, and only the third persons have a gender distinction. Thus, for example, the third-person singular feminine pronoun, la, could refer to a woman, an animal (like mariposa, butterfly), or an object (like casa, house), if their genders are feminine.Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española. (2025). 9789587043686, Santillana Ediciones Generales. ISBN 9789587043686
In certain dialects, there is a tendency to use le (which is usually an indirect object pronoun, meaning "to him/her") as a direct-object pronoun, at the expense of the direct-object pronouns lo/la, if the referent is animate. That tendency is especially strong if (a) the pronoun is being used as a special second-person pronoun of respect, (b) the referent is male, (c) certain verbs are used, (d) the subject of the verb happens to be inanimate.
In general, Arabic divides animacy between عاقل (thinking, or rational) and غير عاقل (unthinking, or irrational). Animals fall in the latter category, but their status may change depending on the usage, especially with personification. Different writers might use الغربان يطيرون إلى ألمانيا ( Al-ġurbān yaṭīrūn ’ilā ’Almāniyā) or الغربان تطير إلى ألمانيا ( Al-ġurbān taṭīr ’ilā ’Almāniyā) for "The ravens fly to Germany."
Likewise, less animate participants are inherently more patient-like, and take ergative marking: unmarked when in the patient role and marked when in the agent role. The hierarchy of animacy generally, but not always, is ordered:
| 1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | proper nouns | humans | animates | inanimates |
|
|
