Re: Animacy in active languages (was Re: Non-static verbs?)

On Fri, 18 Aug 2000 11:22:42 +0200, =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rg?= Rhiemeier
<joerg.rhiemeier@...> wrote:

<...>
>In Nur-ellen, one _could_ put the rain in agentive because it is one of
>the phenomena of nature which are grammatically animate.
<...>
>It is actually quite common that certain natural phenomena such as wind,
>rain or fire, are considered animate as they appear to act out of
>themselves.  Note that pre-scientific people tend to attribute some kind
>of life or soul to quite a lot of things.  Sometimes, the only inanimate
>nouns are those referring to bulk substances and man-made items.
>Celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars etc.) probably are classed as animate
>more often than not.
<...>

IIRC there exists a tradition of using the terms 'active' and 'inactive'
for the two principal noun classes in active langs. IMO 'animate' and
'inanimate' can be misleading (because of not only their trivial meanings,
but also a longer tradition of using them for grammatical categories of
completely different nature).

I don't think one has to be an animist to notice that in a way 'wind' is
something more active than e. g. 'stone'.

... so perhaps name a cat 'a cat'?


Basilius