Animacy / Humanness
Animacy
Personhood
Differential object marking
Is the participant human, living, or non-living?
extended
intermediate
Description and quantity
معنا
A feature that can influence grammar depending on whether a participant is human, animate, animal, object, abstract, or respected.
چطور آن را تشخیص دهید
Notice whether people and living beings behave differently from objects in the sentence.
نمونهها
واژهها
person|dog|tree|stone|idea
عبارتها
a person vs a thing|who vs what
جمله
I saw Maria at the station.
Visual guide
Basic shape
participant: Maria / dog / stone
|
animacy feature
human? animal? thing? idea?
|
grammar may change:
pronoun, object marker,
honorific, plural
Compare shape
same role: object of 'saw' I saw Maria. human I saw a dog. animate I saw a stone. thing Some languages: higher animacy -> extra marking lower animacy -> less/no marking who? vs what?
نمای زبان
در زبان شما
Persian (Farsi, standard Iranian)
میزان حضور
weak
اهمیت
Persian has no grammatical gender, and animacy is not a broad agreement category.
او معلم است.
he/she teacher is.
در زبان در حال یادگیری
Polish (standard)
میزان حضور
strong
دشواری
Animacy and masculine-personal status affect case and plural agreement.
Widzę psa.
I-see dog-ANIM.
چالش رایج زبانآموزان
Learners miss why masculine objects sometimes look genitive.
New in your learning language
This block is more central in your learning language. Give it extra focus in examples and practice.