Definition of "animacy" []

• The characteristic of a noun, in some languages, that is dependent on its living or sentient nature; this characteristic affects grammatical features (it can modify verbs used with the noun, affect the noun's declension etc). (noun)

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• "Swahili is attuned to diverse kinds of animacy, even to degrees of animacy."
• "Nouns of this type are characterized by vitality but not by the same kind of animacy that Swahili-speakers assign to humans or animals."
• "Strange, I've posted exactly about this pre-Etruscan *i- deictic and its relationship to animacy, ergativity, and PIE *i- before online somewhere Yahoogroups like Cybalist perhaps?"