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Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. [1] 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.
The gender distinction in Ojibwe is not a masculine/feminine contrast, but is rather between animate and inanimate.Animate nouns are generally living things, and inanimate ones generally nonliving things, although that is not a simple rule because of the cultural understanding as to whether a noun possesses a "spirit" or not (generally, if it can move, it possesses a "spirit").
For example, in certain words ending in consonants, -e-is added, e.g. mies – miehen "man – of the man", and in some, but not all words ending in -i, the -i is changed to an -e-, to give -en, e.g. lumi – lumen "snow – of the snow". The genitive is used extensively, with animate and inanimate possessors.
The animate–inanimate opposition for the masculine gender applies in the singular, and the personal–impersonal opposition, which classes animals along with inanimate objects, applies in the plural. (A few nouns denoting inanimate things are treated grammatically as animate and vice versa.) The manifestations of the differences are as follows:
The Animate and the Inanimate (1925) The Tribes and the States (c.1935) William James Sidis (/ ˈsaɪdɪs /; April 1, 1898 – July 17, 1944) was an American child prodigy with mathematical and linguistic skills. He was active as a mathematician, linguist, historian, and author. He wrote the book The Animate and the Inanimate, published in 1925 ...
v. t. e. In linguistics, possession[1][2] is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which (the possessor) in some sense possesses (owns, has as a part, rules over, etc.) the referent of the other (the possessed). Possession may be marked in many ways, such as simple juxtaposition of nouns, possessive case ...
e. In linguistics, differential object marking (DOM) is the phenomenon in which certain objects of verbs are marked to reflect various syntactic and semantic factors. One form of the more general phenomenon of differential argument marking, DOM is present in more than 300 languages. The term "differential object marking" was coined by Georg ...
Squash and stretch. The squash and stretch principle: rigid, non-dynamic movement of a ball is compared to a "squash" at impact and a "stretch" during the fall and after the bounce. Also, the ball moves less in the beginning and end (the "slow in and slow out" principle). The purpose of squash and stretch [4] is to give a sense of weight and ...