Is it いる or ある with 物の怪? (Are ghosts animate or inanimate?)

Question

Shall we treat [物の怪]{もののけ} (a kind of ghost) as animate or inanimate? Does it vary for the different ghosts?

Animacy in linguistic sense basically means if it can move by itself. — user4092, Nov 04 '16 at 15:10

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 02 '16 at 01:45

6

We can say "物の怪がいる", we don't use ある at all with 物の怪, 幽霊, 妖怪, お化け, and so on. So I guess we treat them as animate.

answered Nov 02 '16 at 01:45

sii

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 01 '16 at 23:06

3

If you do a google search for 幽霊{ゆうれい} and ある you will find many hits with "いる” instead.

answered Nov 01 '16 at 23:06

ishikun

2 Answers2