The Animacy Effects on Mandarin Grammar

Abstract

This paper first resorts to typological data to argue that the sentient status of a noun determines its rank on the Animacy Hierarchy (Silverstein, 1976). This hierarchy determines the behavioral differences between animate and inanimate nouns in terms of definiteness and word order, etc. Then the animacy effects are employed to account for three Mandarin grammar phenomena from a new animacy perspective (1) adversity passive in Mandarin Chinese results from the rearranging of the more typical higher-animacy subjects preceding the lower-animacy objects; (2) the decrease of pronounhood along the animacy hierarchy accounts for why inanimates in Mandarin tend not to have a pronominal referentiality; and (3) the sentient status of preverbal nominals sheds light on the difference between Mandarin ren ‘human’ and ren-men ‘people’.

Liu, Haiyong. 2023. The Animacy Effects on Mandarin Grammar. UGA Working Papers in Linguistics 6, 221-236. The Linguistics Society at UGA: Athens, GA.