Animacy
Encyclopedia
Animacy is a grammatical
and/or semantic category of noun
s based on how sentient or alive
the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is. Animacy can have various effects on the grammar
of a language, such as choice of pronoun
(what/who), case
endings, word order
, or the form a verb
takes when it is associated with that noun.
In languages which demonstrate animacy, some have simple systems where nouns are either animate (e.g. people, animals) or inanimate (e.g. buildings, trees, abstract ideas), whereas others have complex hierarchical
systems. In such a system, personal pronoun
s generally have the highest animacy (with the first person being highest among them), followed by other humans, animals, plants, natural forces such as wind, concrete objects, and abstractions, in that order. However, it is impossible to generalise completely, and different languages with animacy hierarchies could rank nouns in very different ways. For example, deities, spirits, or certain types of plant or animal could be ranked very highly because of spiritual beliefs.
and in many Indo-European languages
. Some languages, such as Turkish
, Spoken Finnish
and Spanish
do not distinguish between s/he and it. In Finnish
there is a distinction in animacy between hän "he/she" and se "it", however in Spoken Finnish se also can have the meaning "he/she". English shows a similar lack of distinction between they animate and they inanimate in plural, but does as shown above have such a distinction in singular.
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, as follows: (this can also be interpreted in terms of alienable versus inalienable possession
)
Examples of languages in which an animacy hierarchy is important include the Mexican language Totonac and the Southern Athabaskan languages
(such as Western Apache
and Navajo
), whose animacy hierarchy has been the subject of intense study. The Tamil language
has a noun classification
based on animacy.
, there is a theory that in an early stage the Proto-Indo-European language
had only two grammatical genders: animate and inanimate/neuter. The animate gender would then later have developed into the feminine and masculine genders. The plural of neuter/inanimate nouns has assumed to originally have had the same ending as collective nouns in singular, and some words with this collective noun ending in singular were later to become feminine gender words. Traces of this can be found in Ancient Greek, where the singular form of verbs was used when they referred to neuter words in plural. In many Indo-European languages, such as Latin, the plural ending of many neuter words in nominative, accusative and voccative corresponds to the feminine singular form, for example in Latin.
, Southern Athabaskan languages
show various levels of animacy in their grammar, with certain nouns taking specific verb forms according to their rank in this animacy hierarchy. For instance, Navajo
nouns can be ranked by animacy on a continuum from most animate (a human) to least animate (an abstraction) (Young & Morgan 1987: 65-66):
Human > Infant/Big Animal > Medium-sized Animal > Small Animal > Natural Force > Abstraction
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, then either noun can occur in the first position. So both sentences (1) and (2) are correct. The yi- prefix on the verb indicates that the 1st noun is the subject and bi- indicates that the 2nd noun is the subject.
But sentence (3) sounds wrong to most Navajo speakers because the less animate noun occurs before the more animate noun:
In order to express this idea, the more animate noun must occur first, as in sentence (4):
are not marked for animacy, it has two existential/possessive verbs; one for implicitly animate nouns (usually humans and animals) and one for implicitly inanimate nouns (often non-living objects and plants). The verb iru (いる also written 居る）is used to show the existence or possession of an animate noun. The verb aru (ある, sometimes written 在る when existential or 有る when possessive) is used to show the existence or possession of an inanimate noun.
An animate noun, in this case 'cat,' is marked as the subject of the verb with the subject particle ga (が), but no topic
and no location are marked. This 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. This implies that the topic owns, or perhaps 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, in this case the top of a chair, is marked with the location particle ni (に). This implies that the noun is both a definite noun and that is located at the specified location.
In all of those 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,locative]).
In some cases where '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).
, the accusative of animate nouns that are either masculine singular or masculine, feminine or neutral plural coincides with the genitive, while the accusative of inanimate nouns in the same cases coincides with the nominative.
For example, animate noun брат [brat] "a brother" in nominative case, inanimate noun кран [kran] "a crane" (lifting machinery) in accusative case:
On the contrary, брат in accusative case, кран in nominative case:
This holds also for adjectives agreeing with nouns. The same pattern is enforced in most Slavic languages
.
For example:
, the preposition a (meaning "to" or "at") has gained a second role as a marker of concrete animate direct objects:
This usage is fully standard and is found across 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 gender distinction. Thus, for example, the third person singular feminine pronoun, la, could refer to a woman, an animal (e.g. mariposa, butterfly) or an object (e.g. casa, house), provided that their genders are feminine.
With pronouns, 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, when the referent is animate. This tendency is especially strong (a) when the pronoun is being used as a special second-person pronoun of respect, (b) when the referent is male, (c) with certain verbs, (d) when the subject of the verb happens to be inanimate. There is great regional variation as regards this usage.
languages. In such languages, participants more animate are more likely to be the agent
of the verb, and therefore are marked in an accusative pattern: unmarked in the agent role and marked in the patient or oblique role.
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:
The location of the split (the line which divides the inherently agentive participants from the inherently patientive participants) varies from language to language, and, in many cases, the two classes overlap, with a class of nouns near the middle of the hierarchy being marked for both the agent and patient roles.
s can be expressed with either a direct or an inverse construction. The direct construction is used when the subject of the transitive clause outranks the object in salience or animacy. The inverse construction is used when the "notional object" outranks the "notional subject".
Grammatical category
A grammatical category is a semantic distinction which is reflected in a morphological paradigm. Grammatical categories can have one or more exponents. For instance, the feature [number] has the exponents [singular] and [plural] in English and many other languages...
and/or semantic category of noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s based on how sentient or alive
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is. Animacy can have various effects on the grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
of a language, such as choice of pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
(what/who), case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
endings, word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
, or the form a verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
takes when it is associated with that noun.
In languages which demonstrate animacy, some have simple systems where nouns are either animate (e.g. people, animals) or inanimate (e.g. buildings, trees, abstract ideas), whereas others have complex hierarchical
Implicational hierarchy
Implicational hierarchy is a chain of implicational universals.A set of chained universals is schematically shown as in : A Implicational hierarchy is a chain of implicational universals....
systems. In such a system, personal pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s generally have the highest animacy (with the first person being highest among them), followed by other humans, animals, plants, natural forces such as wind, concrete objects, and abstractions, in that order. However, it is impossible to generalise completely, and different languages with animacy hierarchies could rank nouns in very different ways. For example, deities, spirits, or certain types of plant or animal could be ranked very highly because of spiritual beliefs.
Examples
The distinction between he/she and it is a distinction in animacy in EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and in many Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
. Some languages, such as Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, Spoken Finnish
Spoken Finnish
Colloquial Finnish is the "dialectless" colloquial standard of the Finnish language. It is spoken in the Greater Helsinki region, and in urbanized areas in the Tavastian and Central Finland dialectal areas, such as the cities of Jyväskylä, Lahti, Hyvinkää, and Hämeenlinna...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
do not distinguish between s/he and it. In Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
there is a distinction in animacy between hän "he/she" and se "it", however in Spoken Finnish se also can have the meaning "he/she". English shows a similar lack of distinction between they animate and they inanimate in plural, but does as shown above have such a distinction in singular.
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, as follows: (this can also be interpreted in terms of alienable versus inalienable possession
Inalienable possession
In linguistics, inalienable possession refers to the linguistic properties of certain nouns or nominal morphemes based on the fact that they are always possessed. The semantic underpinning is that entities like body parts and relatives do not exist apart from a possessor. For example, a hand...
)
- My face is correct, while
* the face of me is not. - The man's face and the face of the man are both correct, and the former is preferred.
- The clock's face and the face of the clock are both correct, and the latter is preferred.
Examples of languages in which an animacy hierarchy is important include the Mexican language Totonac and the Southern Athabaskan languages
Southern Athabaskan languages
Southern Athabaskan is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the North American Southwest with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas...
(such as Western Apache
Western Apache
Western Apache refers to the Apache peoples living today primarily in east central Arizona. Most live within reservations. The White Mountain Apache of the Fort Apache, San Carlos, Yavapai-Apache, Tonto Apache, and the Fort McDowell Mohave-Apache Indian reservations are home to the majority of...
and Navajo
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
), whose animacy hierarchy has been the subject of intense study. The Tamil language
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
has a noun classification
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
based on animacy.
Proto-Indo-European language
Because of the similarities in morphology of feminine and masculine grammatical gender inflections in Indo-European languagesIndo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
, there is a theory that in an early stage the Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
had only two grammatical genders: animate and inanimate/neuter. The animate gender would then later have developed into the feminine and masculine genders. The plural of neuter/inanimate nouns has assumed to originally have had the same ending as collective nouns in singular, and some words with this collective noun ending in singular were later to become feminine gender words. Traces of this can be found in Ancient Greek, where the singular form of verbs was used when they referred to neuter words in plural. In many Indo-European languages, such as Latin, the plural ending of many neuter words in nominative, accusative and voccative corresponds to the feminine singular form, for example in Latin.
Navajo
Like most other Athabaskan languagesAthabaskan languages
Athabaskan or Athabascan is a large group of indigenous peoples of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family...
, Southern Athabaskan languages
Athabaskan languages
Athabaskan or Athabascan is a large group of indigenous peoples of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family...
show various levels of animacy in their grammar, with certain nouns taking specific verb forms according to their rank in this animacy hierarchy. For instance, Navajo
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
nouns can be ranked by animacy on a continuum from most animate (a human) to least animate (an abstraction) (Young & Morgan 1987: 65-66):
Human > Infant/Big Animal > Medium-sized Animal > Small Animal > Natural Force > Abstraction
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, then either noun can occur in the first position. So both sentences (1) and (2) are correct. The yi- prefix on the verb indicates that the 1st noun is the subject and bi- indicates that the 2nd noun is the subject.
| (1) | Ashkii | at’ééd | yiníł’į́ |
| boy | girl | yi-look | |
| 'The boy is looking at the girl.' | |||
| (2) | At’ééd | ashkii | biníł’į́ |
| girl | boy | bi-look | |
| 'The girl is being looked at by the boy.' | |||
But sentence (3) sounds wrong to most Navajo speakers because the less animate noun occurs before the more animate noun:
| (3) | *Tsídii | at’ééd | yishtąsh |
| bird | girl | yi-pecked | |
| *'The bird pecked the girl.' | |||
In order to express this idea, the more animate noun must occur first, as in sentence (4):
| (4) | At’ééd | tsídi | bishtąsh |
| girl | bird | bi-pecked | |
| 'The girl was pecked by the bird.' | |||
Japanese
Although nouns in JapaneseJapanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
are not marked for animacy, it has two existential/possessive verbs; one for implicitly animate nouns (usually humans and animals) and one for implicitly inanimate nouns (often non-living objects and plants). The verb iru (いる also written 居る）is used to show the existence or possession of an animate noun. The verb aru (ある, sometimes written 在る when existential or 有る when possessive) is used to show the existence or possession of an inanimate noun.
An animate noun, in this case 'cat,' is marked as the subject of the verb with the subject particle ga (が), but no topic
Topic-prominent language
A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N...
and no location are marked. This implies the noun is indefinite and merely exists.
| (1) | Neko | ga | iru. |
| 猫 | が | いる | |
| cat | SUBJECT | to exist | |
| 'There is a cat.' | |||
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. This implies that the topic owns, or perhaps is holding onto, the noun.
| (2) | Watashi | wa | neko | ga | iru. |
| 私 | は | 猫 | が | いる | |
| I | TOPIC | cat | SUBJECT | to exist | |
| 'I have a cat.' | |||||
In the third example, the noun is marked as the topic (and by default functions as the subject of the verb) while a location, in this case the top of a chair, is marked with the location particle ni (に). This implies that the noun is both a definite noun and that is located at the specified location.
| (3) | Neko | wa | isu no ue | ni | iru. |
| 猫 | は | 椅子の上 | に | いる | |
| cat | TOPIC | chair+NOUNCOORDINATOR+above/on | LOCATION | to exist | |
| 'The cat is on the chair.' | |||||
In all of those 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,locative]).
| (1) | Ishi | ga | aru. |
| 石 | が | ある | |
| stone | SUBJECT | to exist | |
| 'There is a stone.' | |||
| (2) | Watashi | wa | ishi | ga | aru. |
| 私 | は | 石 | が | ある | |
| I | TOPIC | stone | SUBJECT | to exist | |
| 'I have a stone.' | |||||
| (3) | Ishi | wa | isu no ue | ni | aru. |
| 石 | は | 椅子の上 | に | ある | |
| stone | TOPIC | chair+NOUNCOORDINATOR+above/on | LOCATION | to exist | |
| 'The stone is on the chair.' | |||||
In some cases where '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
Sentience
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
or anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
), or with the inanimate verb (to emphasise that is a non-living thing).
| (1) | Robotto | ga | iru. |
| ロボット | が | いる | |
| robot | SUBJECT | to exist | |
| 'There is a robot' (emphasis on its human-like behavior). | |||
| (2) | Robotto | ga | aru. |
| ロボット | が | ある | |
| robot | SUBJECT | to exist | |
| 'There is a robot' (emphasis on its status as a non-living thing). | |||
Russian
In RussianRussian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, the accusative of animate nouns that are either masculine singular or masculine, feminine or neutral plural coincides with the genitive, while the accusative of inanimate nouns in the same cases coincides with the nominative.
For example, animate noun брат [brat] "a brother" in nominative case, inanimate noun кран [kran] "a crane" (lifting machinery) in accusative case:
| (1) | Брат | поднимает | кран |
| Brat | podnimayet | kran | |
| A brother | lifts | a crane | |
On the contrary, брат in accusative case, кран in nominative case:
| (2) | Кран | поднимает | брата |
| Kran | podnimayet | brata | |
| A crane | lifts | a brother | |
This holds also for adjectives agreeing with nouns. The same pattern is enforced in most Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
.
Sinhala
In spoken Sinhala, there are two existential/possessive verbs: හිටිනවා hiţinawā / ඉන්නවා innawā are used only for animate nouns (humans and animals), while තියෙනවා tiyenawā for inanimate nouns (non-living objects, plants, things, etc.)For example:
| (1) | minihā | innawā |
| මිනිහා | ඉන්නවා | |
| man | there is/exists (animate) | |
| There is the man | ||
| (2) | watura | tiyenawā |
| වතුර | තියෙනවා | |
| water | there is/exists (inanimate) | |
| There is water | ||
Nouns
In SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, the preposition a (meaning "to" or "at") has gained a second role as a marker of concrete animate direct objects:
| 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) |
This usage is fully standard and is found across the Spanish-speaking world.
Pronouns
Spanish personal pronouns are generally omitted when they are the subject of the sentence, but when they are explicitly stated, they are used only with people or humanized animals or things. There are no inanimate subject pronouns in Spanish, like it in English.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 gender distinction. Thus, for example, the third person singular feminine pronoun, la, could refer to a woman, an animal (e.g. mariposa, butterfly) or an object (e.g. casa, house), provided that their genders are feminine.
With pronouns, 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, when the referent is animate. This tendency is especially strong (a) when the pronoun is being used as a special second-person pronoun of respect, (b) when the referent is male, (c) with certain verbs, (d) when the subject of the verb happens to be inanimate. There is great regional variation as regards this usage.
Split ergativity
Animacy can also condition the nature of the morphologies of split-ergativeSplit ergativity
Split ergativity is shown by languages that have a partly ergative behaviour, but employ another syntax or morphology — usually accusative — in some contexts...
languages. In such languages, participants more animate are more likely to be the agent
Theta role
In generative grammar , a theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb put requires three arguments...
of the verb, and therefore are marked in an accusative pattern: unmarked in the agent role and marked in the patient or oblique role.
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:
The location of the split (the line which divides the inherently agentive participants from the inherently patientive participants) varies from language to language, and, in many cases, the two classes overlap, with a class of nouns near the middle of the hierarchy being marked for both the agent and patient roles.
Hierarchical alignment
In a direct–inverse language clauses with transitive verbTransitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
s can be expressed with either a direct or an inverse construction. The direct construction is used when the subject of the transitive clause outranks the object in salience or animacy. The inverse construction is used when the "notional object" outranks the "notional subject".
See also
- Grammatical genderGrammatical genderGrammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
- Noun classNoun classIn linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
- Classifier (linguistics)Classifier (linguistics)A classifier, in linguistics, sometimes called a measure word, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified...