animacy
- noun
- /ˈænɪməsi/
- Specialized
:
animacidad
- The animacy of the subjects in a sentence can influence how verbs are conjugated in certain languages.
Examples
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In linguistics, animacy refers to the quality of a noun expressing whether it is alive or life-like.
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Another limitation to GJ for these sentences is the potential effect of animacy in passive voice.
Academic text (2011) -
One should stress that none of the animacy restrictions illustrated for various reflexive types.
Academic text (2006) -
Once more, the animacy requirement supports a view of the reflexive type as LDA, and the clause intervention requirement of that is met.
Academic text (2006) -
As sentient biological organisms, humans understand that light is life and that light is the prerequisite to animacy and sentience.
Academic text (1992) -
The effect persisted even when listeners were exposed to 20 minutes of speech in the unfamiliar accent prior to the animacy decision task, indicating a lasting effect for unfamiliar accents.
Academic text (2012) -
"Turner argues that, even in a world disenchanted of "river gods and wind deities and tree spirits," we regularly "project features of animacy and agency" onto non-human objects and abstract entities in order to think about them in human terms, the terms most familiar to us from habitual reflection on our own actions (Literary Mind 20-21).
Academic text (2002) -
Teachers often emphasize animacy to help students understand which nouns can be treated as animate versus inanimate.
Synonyms
2
4.5
A feeling of energy and strong interest in the world
Having life and moving or feeling, like animals
A state of being alive like animals rather than plants or things
A feeling that something is full of life and energy
Antonyms
How Alive
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Animacy comes from the Latin root anima, meaning 'breath' or 'soul', the same root you see in animal, animate, and animation (think of animation making drawings seem alive). So animacy is the quality of being alive or life-like, and in grammar it shows when a noun is treated like a living thing.