Animacy is a grammatical and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or alive the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is.

Hilinqwo generally is not concerned with animacy. However, Hilinqwo does recognize the following forms of animacy:

  • Personhood1
  • Animality
  • Biologicality
  • Inanimacy

The following rules concerning animacy do apply.

  • Gender: If an element has gender, it is assumed to have either personhood or animality.
  • The biological class of elements carry the animacy of the denoted species. Animals are more animate than plants, etc.
  • The chemical class of elements are understood to be inanimate.
  • Absent any of these conditions, the animacy of an element is undefined.