The core idea explored in the target article by dS&dH is that covert and overt shifts in animacy have different effects on selected arguments: Overt shifts constitute a repair strategy when there is a mismatch between the semantic type of the argument and the selectional properties of the predicate. The result is morpho-syntactic accommodation with no change in conceptual animacy. In contrast, covert shifts in animacy comply with selectional restrictions by effecting a type shift in conceptual animacy, i.e. the semantic type of the argument denoted. dS&dH provide a fascinating survey of different kinds of overt and covert shifts from typologically and genetically diverse languages in support of their proposal. Along the way, they expose the complexity of the problem of expressing gradient ontological categories with discrete grammatical ones. In this response, I focus on two issues that dS&dH discuss. The first is the interpretive function of overt animacy marking in Algonquian languages, and its significance for their proposal. The second is the relationship between the three ontological subtypes of entities under consideration, humans, animates and inanimates. Following Malchukov (2008), dS&dH assume that marking animacy per se is redundant because the animacy status of a nominal is clear from the context. This assumption leads to the correct predict that animacy based noun classification is rare in the languages of the world. Algonquian languages with their animacy based morpho-semantic classification system are a rare exception, and as such constitute a valuable resource for explorations of the role of animacy in grammar. Moreover, the fact that grammatical animacy in these languages does not always reflect animacy per se is also expected: As noted in the target article, a significant number of animate nouns in these languages denote inanimate objects.

中文翻译：

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可能和不可能的动画更改

dS＆dH在目标文章中探讨的核心思想是，动画中的隐性和公开变化对所选参数有不同的影响：当参数的语义类型与谓词的选择属性不匹配时，显性转换构成一种修复策略。 。结果是形态句法适应性在概念上没有变化。相反，动画性的隐性移动通过在概念上的动画性中进行类型转换（即所表示自变量的语义类型）来满足选择限制。dS＆dH对类型和遗传上不同的语言的不同类型的显性和隐性转换进行了有趣的调查，以支持他们的建议。一路上，他们暴露了用离散的语法类别来表达梯度本体类别的问题的复杂性。在此回复中，我重点介绍了dS＆dH讨论的两个问题。首先是阿尔贡奎恩语中明显的动画标记的解释功能，及其建议的意义。第二个是所考虑的实体的三种本体论亚型之间的关系，即人类，动画和无生命。继Malchukov（2008）之后，dS＆dH假定标记动画性本身是多余的，因为从上下文中可以清楚地看到标称的动画性状态。这种假设导致正确的预测，即基于生气的名词分类在世界上的语言中很少见。带有基于动画的形态语义分类系统的阿尔冈昆语言是一种罕见的例外，因此，它构成了探索语法中的动画作用的宝贵资源。此外，还期望这些语言的语法动词并不总是能反映出其自身的动词：正如目标文章中指出的那样，这些语言中大量的有生命的名词表示无生命的对象。