Abstract We examine the effects of morphosyntactic marking and selectional restrictions of predicates on conceptual and grammatical animacy. We argue in favour of animacy as an ontological category with human, animate and inanimate entities representing discrete subtypes in the domain of entities. We distinguish between conceptual animacy, which is a gradient notion, and grammatical animacy, for which discrete, binary oppositions are needed. The main aim of this paper is to argue for a distinction between overt and covert type shifts in animacy. On the one hand, overt shifts are linguistic solutions to type mismatches in the grammar. Crucially, these type shifts do not involve a shift in conceptual animacy. Covert animacy shifts, on the other hand, brought about by selectional restrictions or by the linguistic context in general, do involve a proper type shift in conceptual animacy. By making explicit the relation between the gradience of conceptual and the discreteness of grammatical animacy, and by exploring the distinction between covert and overt type shifts that involve animacy, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of animacy and its effects on language.

中文翻译：

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转移的热情

摘要我们研究了形态句法标记和谓词选择限制对概念和语法生气的影响。我们主张将动画作为一种本体论类别，其中人类，有生命和无生命的实体代表实体领域中的离散子类型。我们将概念上的倾向性（即渐变概念）与语法上的倾向性（需要离散的二元对立）区别开来。本文的主要目的是争辩动画性中公开和隐性类型转换之间的区别。一方面，明显的移位是语法中类型不匹配的语言解决方案。至关重要的是，这些类型的转变不涉及概念上的活跃性的转变。另一方面，隐秘的性倾向转变是由选择限制或总体上由语言环境造成的，确实在概念上的活跃性上涉及适当的类型转换。通过阐明概念的梯度和语法动画性离散之间的关系，并探索涉及动画性的隐性和显性类型转换之间的区别，我们希望对动画性及其对语言的影响有更深入的了解。