#animacy

Usually animate vs. inanimate isn't marked in the way, say, masculine and feminine is (most of the time) in Spanish. Rather, animate and inanimate nouns are treated differently, and those differences end up getting codified.

As a sidetrack, consider mass and count nouns in English. These are definite noun classes of English that you have to understand to use the language well, but they're not marked, and generally not taught. The differences, though, are pronounced:

I'll have a hot dog. 🙂

I'll have hot dog. 😬

I'll have a rice. 😬

I'll have rice. 🙂

You can certainly invent contexts where the 😬 ones work, but they usually involve either (a) jokes, or (b) turning the noun into an opposite type via zero derivation. For example, imagine you're being served at a counter of improbable ice cream flavors, and after surveying them all (typewriter, Nintendo Wii Nunchuck buttons, forgetfulness, fig) you decide you want hot dog flavored ice cream, and so you ask for hot dog [flavored ice cream]. Now imagine a series of keychains with pictures of foods on them, and after looking at them all, you decide you want a rice [keychain]. In other words, the way to make the 😬 ones work is to take a naturally count noun and treat it like a mass noun and vice-versa.

The same logic that applies here applies to the development of animacy, but usually with different parameters. For example, inanimate nouns are more likely to be objects and less likely to be subjects. One very common phenomenon you'll see in language is the following (btw, @staff, if we could add tables to Tumblr, I would be so, so, so very happy):

Animate Subject: Noun

Animate Object: Modified Noun

Inanimate Subject: Noun

Inanimate Object Noun

The reason is the animate noun occurring as an object is a bit of a surprise, but is also common enough that it needs to be demarcated or set apart in some way. An inanimate noun is much less likely to be a subject so language users don't care enough to make an event of it.

But look at that! Suddenly there's an animacy distinction in the language. It's pretty minor, but it can keep going. For example, as in Dothraki, sometimes only animate nouns are allowed an explicit plural. Inanimate nouns aren't conisdered important enough to distinguish. That is, it doesn't matter how much rice, how many rocks, how many shirts there are (if it is, there's numbers), but it is important to know how many sisters, how many cats, how many grandparents, etc. there are without having to ask.

Now imagine that being applied to the above system with subjects and objects treated differently depending on animacy. Suddenly animate and inanimate nouns look very different.

02.21.2026

Reading Braiding Sweetgrass for linguistics. I will be presenting on “Learning the Grammar of Animacy” Wednesday morning with a classmate.

Wait, I hear you saying. How do you tell the subject from the object? Simple: animacy. The more animate thing always acts on the less animate thing.

But how is animacy decided? Well, ascribing your own motivations to something, anthropomorphizing it, turning it into a puppet to tell your stories. . . that's a pretty good way to get rid of something's inherent animacy. So the most animate things are the least frequently anthropomorphized, and vice versa.

LV1: non-moving non-conscious things

LV2: moving non-conscious things

LV3: moving conscious things.

So it's actually impossible to say something like "I watch TV." Instead, the TV watches you. 1.SG.LV3-watch tv-LV1-watch.

Nishnaabemowin doesn’t necessarily have gender, rather it classes nouns based on Animacy.

Verbs often structure themselves around whether the noun is animate or inanimate, so to know the Animacy of a noun is important.

Animacy is typically based on whether a noun is a living noun or not, but there are nouns that are animate in Nishnaabemowin that, in the western world, aren’t seen as animate (reproductive organs are a good example of these that are culturally animate).

Animate Nouns

Animate nouns are pluralized using the ending -g

Example: Waagosh (Fox) -> Waagoshag (Foxes)

Animate nouns also use the animate forms of verbs and particles

Example: Wadikwaniwig oweg wadoopag:

Those alders have branches (lit: they have branches those alders)

Typically Animate Nouns:

Living things (plants, animals, etc)

Rocks and earth

Reproductive organs

Inner-body phenomena (blood clots, heart attacks, etc)

Inanimate Nouns

Inanimate nouns are pluralized using -n

Example: Emikwaan (Spoon) -> Emikwaanan (Spoons)

There are also separate verbs and particles for inanimate nouns

Example: Iw Emikwaan Odininaan:

He is holding that spoon

Iniw Emikwaanan Odininaanig