# All Slavic languages: Animate nouns



## darnil

Hello to all.
There is a feature of the Slavic languages which is very interesting from the point of view of Linguistics: animacy. As all of you know better than me, when referring to a man, most of these languages use the genitive instead of the accusative (I mean, like in Russian, for example: _я увидел человека_ instead of *_я увидел человек_, while for inanimate things it is я_ увидел стол_ and not *_я увидел столa; _or in Polish in masculine they say _widziałem chłopców _and in feminine _widziałem dziewczyny; _I hope it is well written).
But my question is: What happens in Bulgarian and Macedonian, where there is no case variation? Is there anything similar to what happens in the other languages?


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## .Jordi.

darnil said:


> Hello to all.
> There is a feature of the Slavic languages which is very interesting from the point of view of Linguistics: animacy. As all of you know better than me, when referring to a man, most of these languages use the genitive instead of the accusative [...]or in Polish in masculine they say _widziałem chłopców _and in feminine _widziałem dziewczyny; _I hope it is well written).



Yes, it is very well written, but you've given examples with the accusative, not the genetive. And as far as I know, in Polish language the animacy doesn't affect the choice of the gramatical case. But maybe I didn't understand good your question.


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## darnil

Well, yes, of course they are in accusative, my mistake. But the accusative form of masculine animate nouns is identical to that of the genitive, while the feminine is different, it has a form which is not the same as the genitive. What I mean is that this difference:

Masculine animate (men): Accusative = Genitive
Masculine inanimate (things with masculine endings): Accusative =Nominative
Feminine: Accusative different from both Nominative and Genitive
implies something more than a random grammatical feature: nouns of men are treated differently in the grammar that all other nouns. If I have understood it well, masculine nouns in Polish can have two forms in the accusative: one for men and another for the rest of nouns. This is similar to the case in the other Slavic languages which have case variation, but very different to what happens, say, in Latin_: video pueros_ 'I see the boys' and _video libros_ 'I see the books' have the same endings in the accusative. The fact that 'boys' are living beings is not shown by a different treatment in the form of the accusative case. I guess it is the same in Germanic languages and in many others. But in Slavic languages there _is_ a different treatment of this question.
My apologies for not being clear.


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## jazyk

> Feminine: Accusative different from both Nominative and Genitive


If you're still talking about Polish, your statement is correct:

Dziewczyna jest tutaj. - There is a girl is here. - nominative
Widzę dziewczynę. - I see a girl. - accusative
Notes dziewczyny jest tutaj. - The girl's notebook is here. - genitive

Dziewczyny są tutaj. - There are girls here. - nominative
Widzę dziewczyny. - I see some girls. - accusative
Notesy dziewczyn są tutaj. - The girls' notebooks are here.

But if you're talking about Russian, feminine nouns in the plural accusative have the same form as the plural genitive:

Девочка здесь. - nominative singular
Я вижу девочку. - accusative singular
Записная книжка девочки здесь. - genitive singular

Девочки здесь. - nominative plural
Я вижу девочек. - accusative plural
Записные книжки девочек здесь. - genitive plural

(The examples in Russian mean the same thing as in Polish.)

But something that I find interesting is that Polish and Russian masculine animate nouns in the plural, as you pointed out, are the same as in genitive plural, but not in Czech, where they are also different from the nominative:

Polish: Znam studentów. - accusative plural = genitive plural.
Russian: Я знаю студентов. - accusative plural = genitive plural.
Czech: Znám studenty. - accusative plural differs from genitive plural. (The nominative would be Studenti jsou tady. - The students are here.)
English: I know the/some students.


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## jazyk

Regarding Macedonian (I don't know about Bulgarian, but it should be the same or very similar), since the language has retained very few case endings that seem to be rarely used, it makes no difference whether the noun in animate or inanimate:

Го знам градот. - I know the town.
Го знам студентот. - I know the student.

Ги знам градовите. - I know the towns.
Ги знам студентите. - I know the students.

Except that Macedonian has to use clitics (go agreeing with masculine singular nouns and gi agreeing with plural nouns), which are mandatory when the object is determined (when you have an article with it, which is placed after the noun in Macedonian, not before it). If you use indefinite nouns, no clitics are used.

Знам град. - I know a town.
Знам студент. - I know a student.

Знам градови. - I know some towns.
Знам студенти. - I know some students.

Personal masculine nouns can be different in all functions except nominative (in Macedonian you don't talk about accusative versus nominative here, since the ending could be used in situations that would be described as genitive, dative or whatever in other Slavic languages), but I'm not sure about these case endings being very often used:

Го знам Стојан/Стојана. - I know Stojan.
Зборувам со Стојана/Стојан. - I'm talking to Stojan. (See, this is no accusative).


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## Christo Tamarin

darnil said:


> Hello to all.
> There is a feature of the Slavic languages which is very interesting from the point of view of Linguistics: animacy. As all of you know better than me, when referring to a man, most of these languages use the genitive instead of the accusative (I mean, like in Russian, for example: _я увидел человека_ instead of *_я увидел человек_, while for inanimate things it is я_ увидел стол_ and not *_я увидел столa; _or in Polish in masculine they say _widziałem chłopców _and in feminine _widziałem dziewczyny; _I hope it is well written).
> But my question is: What happens in Bulgarian and Macedonian, where there is no case variation? Is there anything similar to what happens in the other languages?


 
{Prerequisite 1} Nominative and accusative have never differed for the neuter gender in any IE language (incl. Slavic, German, etc).

{Prerequisite 2} In Old Slavic, accusative plural forms of the a-stemmed nouns replaced nominative plural forms. Example: главъi (heads) is both accusative and nominative, supposed to be originally accusative.

{Prerequisite 3} In Old Slavic, accusative and nominative singular forms of the o-stemmed and u-stemmed nouns phonetically coincided. Example: сънъ (sleep) is both accusative (from *supnum) and nominative (from *supnus). Note: The same happen in the Romance language and the lost of declension was the consequence.

{Supposition1} If the Slavic language(s) continued in this way, it(they) would lose declension as Romance languages did.

{Supposition2} Slavic languages (e.g. Russian) preserved their declension by elaborating the category of animated nouns. For the anumated nouns, the accusative forms, if they co-incided with the nominative forms, were replaced by genetive forms. Examples: old accusative form, singular: человēкъ; new accusative form: человēка (= genetive).

{Supposition3} The mechanism of animated nouns could not preserve declension in Bulgarian (and Macedonian) because of Roman influence. Bulgarian (and Macedonian) being a member of the Balkan sprachbund lost noun declension anyway. 

Archaic accusative forms for animated nouns are still used in Bulgarian (Macedonian) but only for names and other nouns in the condition where definite articles are never applied. In Bulgarian (Macedonian), there is no concordance between the category of animated nouns (a Slavic feature) and the category of definite nouns (a Balkan or Mediterranean feature).


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## Christo Tamarin

jazyk said:


> ..
> Зборувам со Стојана/Стојан. - I'm talking to Stojan. (See, this is no accusative).


This is accusative.

Стојана is the old accusative form according to the Slavic category of animated nouns.

Стојан is either the very old Slavic accusative form (before the elaboration of the category of animated nouns) or the very new Balkanic accusative form not anymore distinguished from nominative.

Note 1: The name Стојан (Stojan) is a translation of the Christian name Constantine.

Note 2: Стојана (Stojana) is the female form of this name. Thus, the phrase *Зборувам со Стојана *is ambiguous: *I'm talking to Stojan* (Stojan is a man) or *I'm talking to Stojana *(Stojana is a woman). This is because nominative and accusative are not distinguished anymore for feminine nouns, either.


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## Maroseika

The question however is why only animated nouns required clear distinguishing. Just because correct calling animated objects (people) was more important?
Couldn't we compare this fact with using prepostion "a" before animated nouns in Gen. in Spanish and Portugal?


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## jazyk

> This is accusative.


It is accusative if you think about the word ending in -a, but it's not if you consider the function the word has in the sentence (object of the preposition co), which in other Slavic languages requires the instrumental in this case. No matter what you call it, though, I just wanted to show Darnil that that ending was possible, but the non-marked form, if you will, is also a possibility.


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## Christo Tamarin

Maroseika said:


> The question however is why only animated nouns required clear distinguishing. Just because correct calling animated objects (people) was more important?
> Couldn't we compare this fact with using prepostion "a" before animated nouns in Gen. in Spanish and Portugal?


I cannot say anything about the preposition "a" in Spanish.

Nouns of neuter gender have never distinguished nominative and accusative since the very beginning of the IE languages.

You are right to suppose than only animated nouns required clear distinguishing.


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## Christo Tamarin

jazyk said:


> It is accusative if you think about the word ending in -a, but it's not if you consider the function the word has in the sentence (object of the preposition co), which in other Slavic languages requires the instrumental in this case. No matter what you call it, though, I just wanted to show Darnil that that ending was possible, but the non-marked form, if you will, is also a possibility.


Before the final lost of declension, in Bulgarian/Macedonian, accusative replaced any other case after any preposition, except in some fixed expressions. So, it cannot be instrumental: Stojana (if masculine) is accusative. Consider also the question in Bulgarian: *S kogo?*

_Addition: I call it accusative because it is affected by the category of animated nouns and, on the other hand, that category affected has not affected any other case but accusative. _

_Accusative forms affected by the Slavic category of animated nouns are still possible in Slavo-Balkanic but they are limited (generally, to male names) and archaic (common nominative/accusative forms are preferred)._


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## Athaulf

Maroseika said:


> The question however is why only animated nouns required clear distinguishing. Just because correct calling animated objects (people) was more important? Couldn't we compare this fact with using prepostion "a" before animated nouns in Gen. in Spanish and Portugal?



Yes, that's an almost perfect analogy (except that _a_ doesn't mark genitive, but rather an oblique case that's more or less equivalent to a combination of dative and accusative). 

The main reason for marking of animacy is that in sentences that have animate entities for both subject and object, it's often impossible to figure out which one is the subject and which one the object based solely on the semantic information. If you say _человек видел стол_, it's clear from the meaning of the words themselves that it's the man who saw the table, and not the other way around. But if you say _человек видел волка_, it would be ambiguous who saw whom if the object weren't marked explicitly. 

In any language, there must be some way to resolve this ambiguity based on syntax or morphology. In some languages, subject and object can always be distinguished, for example if the word order is totally rigid, as in English, or if every noun always has a different case depending on its syntactic role (there are various creative solutions for this besides the nominative-accusative system prevalent in IE languages). However, if this is not so, then animacy markings may arise as a way to resolve the ambiguity in most cases. The Slavic system of animacy doesn't resolve it in all situations -- for example, all neuter nouns still have accusative identical to nominative, and in Croatian, the same holds for feminine plural -- but in such cases, one would normally assume that the subject comes first in the word order.


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## darnil

I can say something about the case of preposition "a" + direct object in Spanish:

In this language, all animate nouns use this construction, no matter which gender they belong to, no matter what number (singular or plural) is used. But, according with the animacy hierarchy (personal pronons are more likely to be marked as animates than proper nouns, and these ones more than common names) there is a limit, like in Russian, for instance, where microbes are optionally marked as animates and plants are not (please correct me if I am wrong). In Spanish, pets are usually considered as animates, since they are seen as individuals (and they often carry a name), but other animals are not. They are not individuated. 
In short, you _must_ place an _a_ before all noun phrases referring to human and pets, you _must not_ place it before NPs referring to other animals:

_He visto a Carlos / a María / a Toby (_your dog)
‘I’ve seen Charles / Mary / Toby’
but
_He visto un perro / una paloma / un lobo._
‘I’ve seen a dog (I don’t know it) / a dove / a wolf.

You _must not_ place it before NPs referring to other animals … unless you know them well:
As we all know, in all fairy tales there is a bad wolf. There is always one, it / he is an old friend of ours, so:

_Los tres cerditos vieron *a*l lobo._
‘The three little pigs saw the wolf’

On the other hand, you _can _have NPs referring to people which aren’t marked with the preposition:

_Busco a una secretaria_
‘I’m looking for a secretary (Sandra, you know; the one who works for Mr. Benítez)’ You may ask “Who in particular?”: you are looking for a specific person.

_Busco una secretaria_
‘I’m looking for a secretary (anyone, I don’t care, provided that she speaks catalan)’. You may ask “What must she know?”: you are looking for a category of employees.

Thus, determination (the inference that your interlocutor can easily locate whom / what you are speaking about) is almost as essential for this particular issue as animateness. An animal can be referred to with the preposition, a personal noun can be referred to without it.


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## darnil

Christo Tamarin said:


> {Prerequisite 1} Nominative and accusative have never differed for the neuter gender in any IE language (incl. Slavic, German, etc).
> 
> {Prerequisite 2} In Old Slavic, accusative plural forms of the a-stemmed nouns replaced nominative plural forms. Example: главъi (heads) is both accusative and nominative, supposed to be originally accusative.
> 
> {Prerequisite 3} In Old Slavic, accusative and nominative singular forms of the o-stemmed and u-stemmed nouns phonetically coincided. Example: сънъ (sleep) is both accusative (from *supnum) and nominative (from *supnus). Note: The same happen in the Romance language and the lost of declension was the consequence.
> 
> {Supposition1} If the Slavic language(s) continued in this way, it(they) would lose declension as Romance languages did.
> 
> {Supposition2} Slavic languages (e.g. Russian) preserved their declension by elaborating the category of animated nouns. For the anumated nouns, the accusative forms, if they co-incided with the nominative forms, were replaced by genetive forms. Examples: old accusative form, singular: человēкъ; new accusative form: человēка (= genetive).
> 
> {Supposition3} The mechanism of animated nouns could not preserve declension in Bulgarian (and Macedonian) because of Roman influence. Bulgarian (and Macedonian) being a member of the Balkan sprachbund lost noun declension anyway.
> 
> Archaic accusative forms for animated nouns are still used in Bulgarian (Macedonian) but only for names and other nouns in the condition where definite articles are never applied. In Bulgarian (Macedonian), there is no concordance between the category of animated nouns (a Slavic feature) and the category of definite nouns (a Balkan or Mediterranean feature).


 
I’m so glad to read such an intereresting thread! 
These ideas are striking… I had read on several texts that the emergence of animacy in Protoslavic was the result of the merging of accusative and genitive, something related to, but not caused by the previous merger of nominative and accusative in –o and –u stem declensions. But attributing to it the preservation of the whole case system is something new to me. It can make sense. The fact of actively marking the agent and the patient in the animate nouns (the ones expected to be more likely subjects and less prone to appear as patients) is in fact a primary need. An intriguing hypothesis sent forth by Г. Хабургаев in _Старославянский__язык_ even considers that only nouns referring to ‘socially active individuals’ (_существительные__обозначавшие__лиц__общественно__активных_: отьць, áратръ, мќжь, къíÿsь,пророкъ...иБогъ.) 
were marked with the Ac=Gen feature in the most ancient Old Slavic texts. Should this be true (I am not able to discuss anything of this caliber), the markedness of agent/patient was limited to a (relatively) small set of stems, even though they include so many nouns. But the fact is that morphological case did survive in all but two languages of the Slavic family, and the feature was extended to the adjectives and (at least in Russian, and to a less extent in Polish and Sorbian, as far as I know, which is not too far) into the plural. (Thank you again, Jazyk). The case for the feminine is different: it did have a different ending for Ac and Nom. It seems to me that the blow received by the case system was a hard one, but with this adaptation (exaptation) it survived well. But why Bulgarian and Macedonian preferred to go their own way?
I personally don’t think that it can be attributed to Romance influence. In fact, many things point the other way: it seems that the only Romance language in the same area, Romanian, stepped back in the pan-Romanic destruction of the declension system _because of the influence of the Slavic languages_. Romanian developed a new (and original) case system and was influenced in many other aspects by the Balkanic _Sprachbund_. I don’t know a word about possible influences by other Romance languages in Bulgarian and Macedonian, I confess, but it seems unlikely to me.
The similarities with the loss of the flexional system in the Romance languages are, nevertheless, clear. After the confusion of Nom / Ac in Vulgar Latin (_domnu _from _dominus __and__ dominum__ ‘lord’_), we had to make do with prepositions (our accusative marking with _a_, general in Spanish, only when needed in Portuguese, and only in very specific cases in Italo- and Gallo-romanic languages) and/or word order (French).
Ladies and/or Gentlemen (nicknames are even less explicit than Proto-Slavic in showing gender according to their endings), thank you very much for this most interesting discussion. And, as we say in Spanish, _¡que no decaiga!_ (don’t let it die).


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## Maroseika

darnil said:


> On the other hand, you _can _have NPs referring to people which aren’t marked with the preposition:
> 
> _Busco a una secretaria_
> ‘I’m looking for a secretary (Sandra, you know; the one who works for Mr. Benítez)’ You may ask “Who in particular?”: you are looking for a specific person.
> 
> _Busco una secretaria_
> ‘I’m looking for a secretary (anyone, I don’t care, provided that she speaks catalan)’. You may ask “What must she know?”: you are looking for a category of employees.
> 
> Thus, determination (the inference that your interlocutor can easily locate whom / what you are speaking about) is almost as essential for this particular issue as animateness. An animal can be referred to with the preposition, a personal noun can be referred to without it.


In Russian also we have the traces of ancient distinguishing between individual and common objects ( I said "traces" because people nowadays usually do not realize this and often mix up):

Порежь хлеба - Сut some bread (I don't care what exactly bread you will cut, I just want some bread)
Порежь хлеб  - Cut up (this) bread.

The only difference between Russian and Spanish here is that a Spaniard "unanimates" animated objects, while a Russian animates unanimated ones, depending onthe importance of their individuality.


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## Christo Tamarin

darnil said:


> .. But why Bulgarian and Macedonian preferred to go their own way?
> I personally don’t think that it can be attributed to Romance influence. In fact, many things point the other way: it seems that the only Romance language in the same area, Romanian, stepped back in the pan-Romanic destruction of the declension system _because of the influence of the Slavic languages_. Romanian developed a new (and original) case system and was influenced in many other aspects by the Balkanic _Sprachbund_. I don’t know a word about possible influences by other Romance languages in Bulgarian and Macedonian, I confess, but it seems unlikely to me.
> The similarities with the loss of the flexional system in the Romance languages are, nevertheless, clear. After the confusion of Nom / Ac in Vulgar Latin (_domnu _from _dominus __and__ dominum__ ‘lord’_), we had to make do with prepositions (our accusative marking with _a_, general in Spanish, only when needed in Portuguese, and only in very specific cases in Italo- and Gallo-romanic languages) and/or word order (French).
> Ladies and/or Gentlemen (nicknames are even less explicit than Proto-Slavic in showing gender according to their endings), thank you very much for this most interesting discussion. And, as we say in Spanish, _¡que no decaiga!_ (don’t let it die).


 
Actually, there was mutual influence between all the memebers of the languages of the Balkan Sprachbund: Greek, Slavo-balkanic, Romano-balkanic and Albanian. The problem here is that we know next to nothing about the history of Albanian.

First, in spoken Greek dialects, dative was lost and generally replaced by genetive (or preposition+accusative).

At the same time, spoken Roman dialects, perhaps all over the Empire, did the following: {1} all prepositions began to require accusative and thus ablative was lost; {2} nominative and accusative in most occasions were not distinguished anymore.

Those were not late to affect Slavo-balkanic. 

The feature "genetive=dative" which first appeared in Greek propagated to Slavo-balkanic and Romano-balkanic. The former lost its genetive replacing it with dative while the latter lost its dative replacing it with genetive (strictly following Greek).

Following Romano-balkanic, all prepositions in Slavo-balkanic began to require accusative. Furthermore, Slavo-balkanic lost its instrumental replacing it with the preposition *sъ* plus accusative (or common accusative/nominative).

Thus, both Romano-balkanic and Slavo-balkanic at some point of the past had the same structure: a common genetive/dative and a common accusative/nominative. Greek had the same but still distinguishes nominative. At some limited occasions, affected by the archaic category of the animated nouns, Slavo-balkanic also distinguishes accusative and nominative, as already discussed.

Romano-balkanic stays at that point. Slavo-balkanic went further: it lost its dative (which already had the functions of genetive) replacing it with the preposition *na* plus accusative (or common accusative/nominative). Archaic dative forms are still possible, also limited to male names and other masculine nouns in a position where no definite articles can be applied. Prenominal dative is still used, however.

Thus, in the past, Slavo-balkanic really supported Romano-balkanic in preserving its genetive/dative. On the other hand, Romano-balkanic and Greek (and probably Albanian) have pushed Slavo-balkanic into the way to losing all the noun declension.

The role of Albanian cannot be identified. 

On the one hand, as the structure of Albanian is almost identical to that of Romano-balkanic (while Greek and Slavo-balkanic slightly differ), Albanian and Romano-balkanic can be considered as the kernel of the Balkan sprachbund. So, we may suppose important influence between Albanian and Romano-balkanic. 

On the other hand, Greek and Slavo-balkanic have also affected Romano-balkanic. 

I have two hypothesis for explaining Romano-balkanic: the concentrated hypothesis and the spread hypothesis. In my opinion, any paleo-balkanic hypothesis is not satisfactory.

The *concentrated hypothesis* supposes that the Balkan sprachbund has had a focus (or epicenter) located along "via ignatia", the shortest way from Rome to Constantinople. Romance dialects of South Italy followed that road, reached the focus of the Balkan sprachbund, acquired membership thus forming Romano-balkanic, and even became the kernel of the sprachbund along with Albanian. Greek and Slavo-balkanic were widespread at that time, so they are not in the kernel of the sprachbund now. Later, the features of the Balkan sprachbund propagated to its current wider area.

The *spread hypothesis* supposes that Balkan sprachbund, since its beginning (about 10-th century), always had the current area (or, limited to the European territory of the Roman empire) and has never had a focus. All over that area, all those four languages (Greek, Slavo-balkanic, Romano-balkanic, Albanican) were spoken, and multi-linguism was usual, moreover. Thus, in order to explain the kernel of the sprachbund, wider area of Albanian in the past was supposed.

Anyway, there are no historical evidences for the supposed wider area of Albanian nor for the presence of Romano-balkanic north to Danube before 12-th century. On the other hand, almost nothing is known about the history of Albanian. The same is true for Romano-balkanic, if we ignore Latine and the other Romance languages. There are no texts in Romano-balkanic before 15-th century. Greek and Slavo-balkanic can be traced back easier.

*This was to explain why Bulgarian and Macedonian preferred to go their own way: they lived in the Roman Empire (commonly known as Byzantine Empire) and were members of the Imperial sprachbund.*

Note: When Turkish came to the Balkans, the Balkan sprachbund has been already established completely. Turkish did not acquire membership. Nevertheless, the Balkan sprachbund preserved its position of an imperial sprachbund, now in the Ottoman empire.

Question: What about the language of Gypsy people? I think it has no membership, neither.


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## PERSEE

Maroseika said:


> The question however is why only animated nouns required clear distinguishing. Just because correct calling animated objects (people) was more important?
> Couldn't we compare this fact with using prepostion "a" before animated nouns in Gen. in Spanish and Portugal?



I think it is definitely comparable (and interesting). Not using the “a" in spanish would amount to making the person a thing. So it would be absurd (and "thing-ifying") to say Я видел *Павел - or in spanish Vi *Pablo.

It is important to insist that the term "animated" applies also to animals, which does not seem clear to everyone. Example: Yo maté a un oso. And I suppose: Я убил медведя.

In Russian, then, people and animals are animated, i. e. have a soul. Meaning it does not apply to all living things, such as plants (just like in spanish).

I'm curious to know the exact extension of the notion. Are germs animated? Are corpses animated? Can a poet "animate" a tree if he addresses it as a person?


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## darnil

PERSEE said:


> In Russian, then, people and animals are animated, i. e. have a soul. Meaning it does not apply to all living things, such as plants (just like in spanish).
> 
> I'm curious to know the exact extension of the notion. Are germs animated? Are corpses animated? Can a poet "animate" a tree if he addresses it as a person?


 
I think that the limits that both languages (Russian and Spanish) place on what can be considered as animate are clearly different: in Russian, all living beings (except plants) are animate, and there is only vacilation in the realm of microbes:
"*Эмбрион* называют плодом (И.Акимушкин) – Я видел в колбе *эмбриона*, Закрученного как валторна (Ю.Арабов); Наука микробиология изучает различных бактерий и вирусы (Н.Гольдин) – Бактерии можно идентифицировать по морфологическим свойствам (А.Быков)" 
But inanimates can be seen as animates in some cases: "Выходя замуж, женщина уносит с собой свои куклы (И.Соломоник) – Перед сном ты опять играла у меня в кабинете. Кормила кукол (Л.Пантелеев). (Narushevich, Andréï (2002): “Neskol’ko voprosov o kategorii odushevlënnosti/ neodushevlënnosti”, en _Russkiï Iazyk_, Nº 41 – 2002. In this paper you can find many answers to your questions. There is an online version: search the web for the original in egf.tsure.ru:80 / egf files / 11_482.doc),
while in Spanish, only animals which are individuated, well known to speakers (i.e. almost like persons for him) use to be marked with the "a". So, I see it as a question of individuals (all people are individuals for other speakers) which are high on the hierarchy of animacy (people - pets - personal belongings - other animals - other things). It is something similar to what happens in some Slavic languages when you speak, for example, about your car or your motorbike (see other thread in this forum about "Animacy in masculine nouns" -I'm not allowed to paste urls here ¿?-)
What do you think?


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## cucciolona

As your question was posted under the title "All Slavic languages..." I just wanted to tell that I cannot notice the difference you are talking about in my language - Slovenian.
Ex:
These are the boys you wanted to see. (nominative)
To so *decki*, ki si jih hotel videti.
I saw the boys entering the room. (acusative)
Videl sem *decke* stopiti v sobo.
These are the chairs you wanted to see. (nom)
To so *stoli*, ki si jih hotel videti.
I saw the chairs in the room. (acu)
Videl sem *stole* v sobi.

However I am not sure I've understood your statement very well.


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## darnil

cucciolona said:


> I just wanted to tell that I cannot notice the difference you are talking about in my language - Slovenian.
> However I am not sure I've understood your statement very well.


 
Well, I guess maybe such difference doesn't exist in Slovenian, but since the examples you are using are all in the plural, it is possible that this feature can only happen in singular. As far as I know, in most Slavic languages the differences between animate and inanimate nouns only show in the masculine singular. 
I mean: Do you use the same ending (I'm not speaking of case!) for _boy_ and _chair _in the accusative singular? I have read something that implies that _kova__č_ has an -_a_ ending in Acc. identical to that of the genitive (something as _videl kova__ča_) vs _stol_, which has the ending in acc identical to that of the nominative (_videl stol) _Please correct me if I am wrong. I really _don't know!_).


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## darnil

I think the best way to solve this would be for me to prepare a comparative table of the situation in each Slavic language. Something as 
"In X, animacy only affects masculine singular nouns, adjectives and determiners. No difference in plural.
In Y, it affects also nouns of all genders in plural.
In Z, it doesn't affect the shape of cases and only shows up in word order".

I can begin with Russian. Can you help me?

*Russian:*
_(I’ve taken the following rules from another thread on animacy I found on this forum, called *Russian: animate neuter nouns *): _



“The animate/inanimate distinction is relevant for determining the accusative case form of the following words: 

singular masculine nouns that are not part of the "-а/-я" declension class
all adjectives referring to any masculine singular noun
all nouns and adjectives in the plural”
So: 
*In singular:*

/Animate /Inanimate​masculine / Я вижу того хорошего студента / Я вижу тот хороший самолет
femenine / Я вижу ту хорошую женщину / Я вижу ту хорошую книгу
neuter / Я вижу тот хорошее чудовище / Я вижу то хорошее поле

*In plural:*

masculine / Я вижу тех хороших студентов / Я вижу те хорошие самолеты​femenine / Я вижу тех хороших женщин*- */ Я вижу те хорошие книги
neuter / Я вижу тех хороших чудовищ*- */ Я вижу те хорошие поля

*If a masculine animate uses the II decl. ( –a / -я):*

Masculine /Я вижу того молодого мужчину / Я вижу тех молодых мужчин*-*​


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## cucciolona

Hi Darnil,
I tried to think of dozens of different masculin words and what you are saying it is working.  animate finishes in -a in acc. and inanimate remains the same as nom... It works in singular and dual but not in plural.


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## dudasd

I'd rather put it as a matter of personality.  Unchangable masculine nouns are always answer to question "what?", and changable are always answer to question "who?". (So a bactery or a corps are "what", not "who".) NOTE: animals are generally "what", but they are live beyond doubt, so their names are being changed in accusative. Exceptions do exist in case of unliving things having "personality" or "soul" - like in the case of car owners; they will usually say: "Vozim 'forda'." (NOTE: it's grammatically incorrect; in written texts only "Vozim 'ford'" would be allowed - at least in Serbian.) But there is a nuber of grammatically correct exceptions: in case of playing cards, it's correct to say "Imam keca", "Imam kralja" ("I have an ace", "I have a king"); also: "Puštam zmaja" ("I am flying a kite") etc. With appearance of computer mouse, we got one more animated word ("Pomeram miša" - "I am moving the mouse").


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## darnil

cucciolona said:


> Hi Darnil,
> I tried to think of dozens of different masculin words and what you are saying it is working.  animate finishes in -a in acc. and inanimate remains the same as nom... It works in singular and dual but not in plural.


 
Excuse me for the late answer, but I cannot enter the forum whenever I want...
Dudasd just said that some things are referred to in his (her?) language as animated. * Speaks about playing cards, cars, (chess pieces?) (thank you for the info, Dudasd) Is it the same in Slovenian?
In Spanish it seems to be different: when playing chess you say "te como el rey" (lit.: "I eat your king", I don't know if you use to eat kings and queens, but Spain is still a monarchy...) In this case, "el rey" is referred to as an inanimate being.
It seems to me that human soul tends to see other souls in such different places...


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## darnil

Christo Tamarin said:


> Before the final lost of declension, in Bulgarian/Macedonian, accusative replaced any other case after any preposition, except in some fixed expressions. So, it cannot be instrumental: Stojana (if masculine) is accusative. Consider also the question in Bulgarian: *S kogo?*
> 
> _Addition: I call it accusative because it is affected by the category of animated nouns and, on the other hand, that category affected has not affected any other case but accusative. _
> 
> _Accusative forms affected by the Slavic category of animated nouns are still possible in Slavo-Balkanic but they are limited (generally, to male names) and archaic (common nominative/accusative forms are preferred)._


 
So, animacy still does play a role in Slavo-Balkanic? I didn't know that even today there was the posiibility of using casual forms in Bulgarian and/or Macedonian, even though they sound archaic. I'm afraid that I'll have to review my old books and notes...


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## darnil

Christo Tamarin said:


> {Supposition1} If the Slavic language(s) continued in this way, it(they) would lose declension as Romance languages did.
> 
> {Supposition2} Slavic languages (e.g. Russian) preserved their declension by elaborating the category of animated nouns. For the anumated nouns, the accusative forms, if they co-incided with the nominative forms, were replaced by genetive forms. Examples: old accusative form, singular: человēкъ; new accusative form: человēка (= genetive)..


 
I've been thinking of this, and I'd like to know more about it. Could you please tell me if there are any books or papers studying this issue in more depth? (And if they were accesible via the Internet or in libraries in Spain, even better). 
I tell you: I like this point of view a lot.


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## dudasd

Christo Tamarin said:


> {Supposition2} Slavic languages (e.g. Russian) preserved their declension by elaborating the category of animated nouns. For the animated nouns, the accusative forms, if they co-incided with the nominative forms, were replaced by genitive forms. Examples: old accusative form, singular: человēкъ; new accusative form: человēка (= genitive).


 
It would be a very strange coincidence, that physically separated languages elaborated the same trick. At the same time, in modern Slavic languages we have accusatives of nouns of neuter gender that remained same as their nominatives; on the other hand, in Old Slavonic we see clearly different accusatives in the most of declensions of nouns of feminine gender. The more common hypothesis is that nominative just lost its vowel (while accusative kept it), which was a tendency that had already existed in Old Slavonic, as well as the tendency of distinction between animate and non-animate nouns. I also must notice that *ъ* generally tended to change to *a*, so the theory about accusative changing because it co-incided with nominative form doesn't sound reliable.


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## zigaramsak

darnil said:


> Dudasd just said that some things are referred to in his (her?) language as animated. * Speaks about playing cards, cars, (chess pieces?) (thank you for the info, Dudasd) Is it the same in Slovenian?


 
Different accusative form for living beings (or rather things with their own mind) - animate nouns - only appears in the 1st masculine declension in Slovenian (there are 4 masculine, 4 feminine and 3 neuter declensions). There are some non-living exceptions that also adhere to this rule (e.g. cars). It seems that we too, like Serbians, treat them as if they were alive. 

About the other nouns dudasd mentioned: I think many of these "exceptions" have more than one meaning and one of them is something that can live, but we only have one accusative form for all of them: I'm not sure why ace is an animate noun, but it's logical for kings and dragons (I must point out that we use the same word "zmaj" for kites and dragons). Mouse (miš) is feminine in Slovenian.


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## Christo Tamarin

darnil said:


> So, animacy still does play a role in Slavo-Balkanic? I didn't know that even today there was the posiibility of using casual forms in Bulgarian and/or Macedonian, even though they sound archaic. I'm afraid that I'll have to review my old books and notes...


I would not say animacy still does play a role. It is just endured.


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## Christo Tamarin

dudasd said:


> It would be a very strange coincidence, that physically separated languages elaborated the same trick.


Actually, the trick is old enough. 

darnil has already provided some information:


darnil said:


> An intriguing hypothesis sent forth by Г. Хабургаев in _Старославянский__язык_ even considers that only nouns referring to ‘socially active ndividuals’ (_существительные__обозначавшие__лиц__общественно__активных_: отьць, áратръ, мќжь, къíÿsь,пророкъ...иБогъ.)
> were marked with the Ac=Gen feature in the most ancient Old Slavic texts. Should this be true (I am not able to discuss anything of this caliber), the markedness of agent/patient was limited to a (relatively) small set of stems, even though they include so many nouns. But the fact is that morphological case did survive in all but two languages of the Slavic family, and the feature was extended to the adjectives and (at least in Russian, and to a less extent in Polish and Sorbian, as far as I know, which is not too far) into the plural.


 



dudasd said:


> The more common hypothesis is that nominative just lost its vowel (while accusative kept it), which was a tendency that had already existed in Old Slavonic, as well as the tendency of distinction between animate and non-animate nouns. I also must notice that *ъ* generally tended to change to *a*, so the theory about accusative changing because it co-incided with nominative form doesn't sound reliable.


It is clear that, for animated masculine nouns, the accusative form ending in -a comes from genitive. This is because the adjective takes the genitive form too, even in Serbian. Some languages (e.g. Russian) replaced accusative with genitive even for feminine plural animated nouns.


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