In Japanese, いる expresses that an animate object exists. This does not include trees and shrubbery, as they do not move of their own volition (except treants).
ある expresses the existence of an inanimate object. Things like boxes, cars, and books ある.
But what about the AI robots of the future?
17 Comments
June 26, 2008 at 1:38 am
If it moves under it’s own power and has some form of sentience, it uses いる. Ghosts いる too.
Oddly, I’ve heard that cars can いる if people are in them.
June 26, 2008 at 2:04 am
From the web; ロボットASIMOがいる夢の社会
I looked up 居る on yahoo dic; lot of odd uses nobody thinks about.
June 26, 2008 at 6:41 am
Robots will use いる. You can say いる for cars and other non-living things that are in motion. Like if you see a lot of cars driving on the highway you can say: いっぱい車がいる。(There are a lot of cars).
June 26, 2008 at 10:12 am
I dunno - the language convention based on a technical definition of life may be that we use いる, but there’s still the whole debate about whether there is life there or simply a machine that wonderfully mimics life (to the point where it believes itself to be alive). Is there a difference? Is there a soul? At some point all animate things are made of inanimate matter - what it is that makes us aware of ourselves? What is it that we call life?
June 26, 2008 at 11:48 am
やっぱり、ロボットは「いる」ですね。
June 26, 2008 at 11:48 am
Deas: Humans are just biological robots.
June 26, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Hey - add this to the conversation - I’m currently in the middle of the third book in the 「ダーリンは外国人」 series. (Specifically, “with baby.”
While looking at her newborn infant (from the section titled ほやほや on page 33), the author’s narration reads thusly: 「昨日まで体の中にあったものが 今目の前に 出しといて何だが 不思議だ…」 I’m really not trying to get into an abortion debate - but I can’t help but be curious about this verb regarding fetuses / infants. Does the verb change in the birth canal? Or is this simply a grammatical convention because of the use of もの? 
Hmmm. Anyone?
June 26, 2008 at 2:10 pm
@Deas: I don’t know what the official answer is, but when my wife was pregnant with our baby, I think she used いる.
June 26, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Getting iru over here. The Darling series didn’t have any abortions did it? o_o
June 26, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Clay - negatory. No abortions. It’s just that if you ask someone whether they think a fetus is alive or not (i.e. when they think of a baby as a baby), you get into all sorts of pro-abortion / pro-life arguments. Which wasn’t the point so much as sorting out the language.
When she talks about the baby on this page in past tense, when it was still in her womb, she uses ある. At other points in the book, she refers to the baby (also still in her womb) with いる. (For instance, when she is about to cross a street in a rush to beat the changing light, she reminds herself about it.) I guess it’s a fuzzy linguistic area, huh? Then again, it could just be cutesy talk that I don’t pick up on. I’m never really sure. (Great series, though. I can see why it was a hit.)
June 26, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Deas: ダーリンは外国人 is a superb series, but one thing disappointed me. At one point, Tony mentions 国際結婚は英語でそんな言葉がない (or something to that extent. I don’t have the book on my person at the moment). Then he starts offering suggestions like “mixed marriage”, but what is he talking about? “International marriage” is a perfectly legitimate phrase to use. I think this took place in the first book. I haven’t read the one with the baby yet. Only the first, second, and ダーリンの頭ん中.
June 26, 2008 at 6:41 pm
[...] this afternoon about an interesting animate / inanimate verb problem that was discussed earlier at Victory Manual. Within 2 hours I had 2 revisions completed for me, with easy-to-follow markup. I can see who [...]
June 27, 2008 at 6:11 pm
i came across this post a bit too late but i wanted to point out what clay did. then thomas gave me an answer, thanks. it intrigued me a long time. we say
“uma ga iru” on the field without a man on the back. so i think “in the motion” is an issue. the fetus iru/aru is a question of focus, i think. in pregnancy, japanese use iru(i don’t remember hearing aru) but the phrase in the darling book doesn’t shock our ears because i think she puts ものexplicitly as deas says.
June 27, 2008 at 7:12 pm
i’ve never read the darling book but i heard the husband was italian. 国際結婚は英語でそんな言葉がない may be untrue but it’s possible that that word doesn’t exist in italian as well established word. i can’t say about the italian but in french, le mariage international isn’t an idiom. by contrast, le mariage mixte is more often used. didn’t the darling guy want to say that?
June 28, 2008 at 8:59 am
Naoki:
Tony is a half-Italian, half-Hungarian American.
June 30, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Someone just wisely commented on my Lang-8 journal entry about this. Here’s what they said:
Sorry it’s long. I just thought it was a helpful hint. Clarified things for me on the little riddle I through into the clockwork there. Anyhoo, end of thread hijack, hopefully.
June 30, 2008 at 5:38 pm
It’s because babies are parasites while they’re still in the womb! They can’t be without the host.
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