The person-animacy connection: Evidence from Algonquian and Dene

Abstract

This squib presents evidence from the Algonquian and Dene language families to support a connection between person and animacy. A range of morphosyntactic patterns in these languages, including pronoun inventories, agreement restrictions, and hierarchy effects, are argued to indicate that inanimate nominals lack formal person features. This proposal allows the morphosyntactic patterning of inanimates to fall out from grammatical principles that are independently required to account for person effects. We conclude that the often-assumed model in which third persons are "personless" must be revised to allow for languages in which only inanimate third persons lack formal person features.The squib is organized as follows. Section 1 provides background on person features and the notion of personlessness. Section 2 shows that various patterns in Algonquian and Dene morphosyntax follow from an analysis in which inanimate third persons are personless but animate third persons are specified for person. Section 3 considers whether the proposed person-animacy connection is conditioned by semantic animacy or grammatical animacy. *To Marie-Louise Bouvier White, Lena Drygeese, the late Archie Wedzin, and an anonymous consultant, masìcho for sharing your knowledge of the Tłıchǫ language. Special thanks and memory to Ojibwe language teachers Donald Keesig, Ella Waukey, and Berdina Johnston of Cape Croker. We thank the organizers and audience of "Gender, Class, and Determination: A Conference on the Nominal Spine", where we first presented this work, for excellent and stimulating feedback.

Agree feeds interpretation: Evidence from Japanese object honorifics

“…First, it has been independently noted that, at least in some languages, only animate NPs can have person features (Lochbihler et al 2021 and Adger & Harbour 2007, among others). For example, Lochbihler et al 2021 provides data from Dene showing that animate third‐person DPs (as well as first/second‐person DPs) can trigger object agreement while inanimate third‐person DPs cannot:

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“…First, it has been independently noted that, at least in some languages, only animate NPs can have person features (Lochbihler et al 2021 andAdger &Harbour 2007, among others). For example, Lochbihler et al 2021 Second, it has been proposed that index features are related to person features (Wechsler & Zlati ć 2000, Sudo 2012, Podobryaev 2017).…”

“…First, it has been independently noted that, at least in some languages, only animate NPs can have person features (Lochbihler et al 2021 andAdger &Harbour 2007, among others). For example, Lochbihler et al 2021 Second, it has been proposed that index features are related to person features (Wechsler & Zlati ć 2000, Sudo 2012, Podobryaev 2017). Sudo 2012, for example, accounts for the observation that a bound-variable reading of a pronoun does not allow person-feature mismatch between the binder and the bindee by claiming that the binder indices carry person features.…”

Polish politeness markers as a window into person-feature valuation

“…11 By extension, this reasoning implies that if Slavic 3rd person nominal phrases are smaller than DPs, at least 1st and 2nd person pronouns must still be DPs. 12 See, e.g., the argumentation in Ormazabal & Romero (1998); Nevins (2007); Lochbihler & Oxford (2015) that exactly for this reason isolates effects of person in marked environments. Cf.…”