ANIMACY

Question 1

ANIMACY EFFECTS: ON A

Answer 1

usually agents:
typically animate
in some languages, inanimate As are not allowed; in other, dispreferred

Question 2

ANIMACY EFFECTS: ON P, R

Answer 2

usually patients:
can be both animate and inanimate
in some languages animated Ps are treated differently from inanimate, though case, agreement, word order. If a language makes a distinction between a more and a less animate P in terms of agreement marking, then it will always be the more animate P that has agreement.

Question 3

ANIMACY EFFECTS: ON Rs vs Ps

Answer 3

Rs are typically recipients/beneficiaries, so are animate than Ps in ditransitive clauses; some languages treat Rs as “more important” than Ps

Question 4

ANIMACY EFFECTS: ON ALIGNMENT

Answer 4

split alignment: animate referents will align accusatively, inanimate referents will align ergatively

Question 5

HIERARCHIES

Answer 5

animate vs inanimate nouns, but also
human vs non-human nouns (evidence from the use of personal pronoun, number)
higher animal vs lower animal nouns (evidence from the use of personal pronoun and number)
human kin & proper nouns vs other human nouns (split alignment, the ‘more’ animate=acc, the ‘less’ animate=erg)

Question 6

ANIMACY HIERARCHY

Answer 6

human kin, proper noun>other human>higher animals>other organisms>inorganic matter>abstracts

1. things higher up the hierarchy more likely to function as A
2. things higher up the hierarchy more likely to align accusatively, things lower down the hierarchy more likely to align ergatively
3. things higher up the hierarchy more likely to come earlier in the sentence
4. things higher up the hierarchy more likely to exhibit overt number marking
5. things higher up the hierarchy more likely to make more grammatical distinctions (e.g. number, gender)
6. things higher up the hierarchy more likely to trigger agreement marking

Question 7

VERB AGREEMENT

Answer 7

direct-inverse alignment:
based on the relative positions of A and P on a person hierarchy
always with the highest one but in two configurations
- direct: A outranks P (e.g. second person A > third person P)
- inverse: P outranks A (e.g. second person P > third person A)