Classifier (linguistics)

Measure words play a similar role to classifiers, except that they denote a particular quantity of something (a drop, a cupful, a pint, etc.), rather than the inherent countable units associated with a count noun. Classifiers are used with count nouns; measure words can be used with mass nouns (e.g. "two pints of mud"), and can also be used when a count noun's quantity is not described in terms of its inherent countable units (e.g. "two pints of acorns").

However, the terminological distinction between classifiers and measure words is often blurred – classifiers are commonly referred to as measure words in some contexts, such as Chinese language teaching, and measure words are sometimes called mass-classifiers or similar.[2][3]

Classifiers are not generally a feature of English or other European languages, although classifier-like constructions are found with certain nouns. A commonly cited English example is the word head in phrases such as "five head of cattle": the word cattle (for some speakers) is an uncountable (mass) noun, and requires the word head to enable its units to be counted. The parallel construction exists in French: une tête de bétail ("one head of cattle"), in Spanish: una cabeza de ganado ("one head of cattle") and in Italian: un capo di bestiame ("one head of cattle"). Note the difference between "five head of cattle" (meaning five animals), and "five heads of cattle" (identical to "five cattle's heads", meaning specifically their heads). A similar phrase used by florists is "ten stem of roses" (meaning roses on their stems).

European languages naturally use measure words. These are required for counting in the case of mass nouns, and some can also be used with count nouns. For example, one can have a glass of beer, and a handful of coins. The English construction with of is paralleled in many languages, although in German (and similarly in Dutch and the Scandinavian languages) the two words are simply juxtaposed, e.g. one says ein Glas Bier (literally "a glass beer", with no word for "of"). Slavic languages put the second noun in the genitive case (e.g. Russian чаша пива (chasha piva), literally "a glass beer's"), but Bulgarian, having lost the Slavic case system, uses expressions identical to German (e.g. чаша пиво).

Certain nouns are associated with particular measure words or other classifier-like words that enable them to be counted. For example, paper is often counted in sheets as in "five sheets of paper". Usage or non-usage of measure words may yield different meanings, e.g. five papers is grammatically equally correct but refers to newspapers or academic papers. Some inherently plural nouns require the word pair(s) (or its equivalent) to enable reference to a single object or specified number of objects, as in "a pair of scissors", "three pairs of pants", or the French une paire de lunettes ("a pair of (eye)glasses").

Australian Aboriginal languages are known for often having extensive Noun class systems based on semantic criteria. In many cases, a given noun can be identified as a member of a given class via an adjacent classifier, which can either form a hyponym construction with a specific noun, or act as a generic noun on its own.

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In the following example from Kuuk Thaayorre, the specific borrowed noun tin.meat 'tinned meat' is preceded by its generic classifier minh 'meat.'

Whereas in this example, the same classifier minh stands in on its own for a generic crocodile (punc), another member of the minh class:

Classifiers and specific nouns in Kuuk Thaayorre can also co-occupy the head of a noun phrase to form something like a compound or complex noun as in ngat minh.patp 'CL(fish) hawk' which is the complex noun meaning 'stingray'.

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Another example of this kind of hyponym construction can be seen in Diyari:

See the nine Diyari classifiers below

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Contrast the above with Ngalakgan in which classifiers are prefixes on the various phrasal heads of the entire noun phrase (including modifiers):

Ngalakgan has fewer noun classes than many Australian Languages, the complete set of its class prefixes are below:

Atypically for an Indo-European language, Bengali makes use of classifiers. Every noun in this language must have its corresponding classifier when used with a numeral or other quantifier. Most nouns take the generic classifier ṭa, although there are many more specific measure words, such as jon, which is only used to count humans. Still, there are many fewer measure words in Bengali than in Chinese or Japanese. As in Chinese, Bengali nouns are not inflected for number.

Similar to the situation in Chinese, measuring nouns in Bengali without their corresponding measure words (e.g. aṭ biṛal instead of aṭ-ṭa biṛal "eight cats") would typically be considered ungrammatical. However, it is common to omit the classifier when it counts a noun that is not in the nominative case (e.g., aṭ biṛaler desh (eight cats-possessive country ), or panc bhUte khelo (five ghosts-instrumental ate)) or when the number is very large (e.g., ek sho lok esechhe ("One hundred people have come.")). Classifiers may also be dropped when the focus of the sentence is not on the actual counting but on a statement of fact (e.g., amar char chhele (I-possessive four boy, I have four sons)). The -ṭa suffix comes from /goṭa/ 'piece', and is also used as a definite article.

Omitting the noun and preserving the classifier is grammatical and common. For example, Shudhu êk-jon thakbe. (lit. "Only one-MW will remain.") would be understood to mean "Only one person will remain.", since jon can only be used to count humans. The word lok "person" is implied.

Maithili, Nepali and Assamese have systems very similar to Bengali's. Maithili uses -ta for objects and -goatey for humans; similarly, Nepali has -waṭā (-वटा) for objects and -janā (-जना) for humans.

Assamese, Chittagonian, Sylheti and other Bengali-Assamese languages have more classifiers than Bengali.

Persian (Farsi) has a scheme very similar to the Indo-Aryan languages Bengali, Assamese, Maithili and Nepali.

Although not always used in written language, Farsi uses classifiers regularly in spoken word. Farsi has two general-use classifiers, دانه (dāne) and تا (tā), the former of which is used with singular nouns, while the latter is used with plural nouns.

In addition to general-use classifiers, Farsi also has several specific classifiers, including the following:

In Burmese, classifiers, in the form of particles, are used when counting or measuring nouns. They immediately follow the numerical quantification. Nouns to which classifiers refer can be omitted if the context allows, because many classifiers have implicit meanings.

Although classifiers were not often used in Classical Chinese, in all modern Chinese varieties such as Mandarin, nouns are normally required to be accompanied by a classifier or measure word when they are qualified by a numeral or by a demonstrative. Examples with numerals have been given above in the Overview section. An example with a demonstrative is the phrase for "this person" — 这个人 zhè ge rén, where the character 个 is the classifier that literally meaning "individual" or "single entity", so the entire phrase means "this individual person" or "this single person". A similar example is the phrase for "these people" — 这群人 zhè qún rén, where the classifier 群 means "group" or "herd", so the phrase literally means "this group [of] people" or "this crowd".

The noun in a classifier phrase may be omitted, if the context and choice of classifier make the intended noun obvious. An example of this again appears in the Overview section above.

The choice of a classifier for each noun is somewhat arbitrary and must be memorized by learners of Chinese, but often relates to the object's physical characteristics. For example, the character 条 tiáo originally means "twig" or "thin branch", is now used most often as a classifier for thin, elongated things such as rope, snake and fish, and can be translated as "(a) length (of)", "strip" or "line". Also not all classifiers derive from nouns; for example, the character 張/张 zhāng is originally a verb meaning "to span (a bow)", and is now used as a classifier to denote squarish flat objects such as paper, hide or (the surface of) table, and can be more or less translated as "sheet". The character 把 bǎ was originally a verb meaning to grasp/grip, is now more commonly used as the noun for "handle", and can also used as the classifier for "handful".

Technically a distinction is made between classifiers (or count-classifiers), which are used only with count nouns and do not generally carry any meaning of their own, and measure words (or mass-classifiers), which can be used also with mass nouns and specify a particular quantity (such as "bottle" [of water] or "pound" [of fruit]). Less formally, however, the term "measure word" is used interchangeably with "classifier".

In Gilbertese, classifiers must be used as a suffix when counting. The appropriate classifier is chosen based on the kind and shape of the noun, and combines with the numeral, sometimes adopting several different forms.

There is a general classifier (-ua) which exists in simple numbers (te-ua-na 1; uo-ua 2; ten-ua 3; a-ua 4; nima-ua 5; until 9) and is used when there is no specific classifier and for counting periods time and years; and specific classifiers like:

• -man (for people, animals, small fishes; te man alone means bird (man-ni-kiba, flying animal) or small bug);
• -ai (for big fishes and cetaceans);
• -waa (for canoes and, by extension, all vehicles (a-waa te waanikiba means "4 planes" - waa-ni-kiba, literal meaning is "flying canoe");

In Japanese grammar, classifiers must be used with a number when counting nouns. The appropriate classifier is chosen based on the kind and shape of the noun, and combines with the numeral, sometimes adopting several different forms.

The Korean language has classifiers in the form of suffixes which attach to numerals. For example, jang (장) is used to count sheets of paper, blankets, leaves, and other similar objects: "ten bus tickets" could be translated beoseu pyo yeol-jang (버스 표 열 장), literally "bus ticket ten-[classifier]".

In Malay grammar, classifiers are used to count all nouns, including concrete nouns, abstract nouns[7] and phrasal nouns. Nouns are not reduplicated for plural form when used with classifiers, definite or indefinite, although Mary Dalrymple and Suriel Mofu give counterexamples where reduplication and classifiers co-occur.[8] In informal language, classifiers can be used with numbers alone without the nouns if the context is well known. The Malay term for classifiers is penjodoh bilangan, while the term in Indonesian is kata penggolong.

Vietnamese uses a similar set of classifiers to Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Khmer (Cambodian) also uses classifiers, although they can quite frequently be omitted. Since it is a head-first language, the classifier phrase (number plus classifier) comes after the noun.

In American Sign Language classifier constructions are used to express position, stative description (size and shape), and how objects are handled manually. The particular hand shape used to express any of these constructions is what functions as the classifier. Various hand shapes can represent whole entities; show how objects are handled or instruments are used; represent limbs; and be used to express various characteristics of entities such as dimensions, shape, texture, position, and path and manner of motion. While the label of classifiers has been accepted by many sign language linguists, some argue that these constructions do not parallel oral-language classifiers in all respects and prefer to use other terms, such as polymorphemic or polycomponential signs.[10]

Examples:

• 1 hand shape: used for individuals standing or long thin objects
• A hand shape: used for compact objects
• C hand shape: used for cylindrical objects
• 3 hand shape: used for ground vehicles
• ILY hand shape: used for aircraft

The Egyptian hieroglyphic script is formed of a repertoire of hundreds of graphemes which play different semiotic roles. Almost every word ends with an unpronounced grapheme (the so-called “determinative”) that carries no additional phonetic value of its own. As such, this hieroglyph is a “mute” icon, which does not exist on the spoken level of language but supplies the word in question, through its iconic meaning alone, with extra semantic information.[11]

In recent years, this system of unpronounced graphemes was compared to classifiers in spoken languages. The results show that the two systems, those of unpronounced graphemic classifiers and those of pronounced classifiers in classifier languages obey similar rules of use and function. The graphemic classifiers of the hieroglyphic script presents an emic image of knowledge organization in the Ancient Egyptian mind.[12]

Similar graphemic classifiers are known also in Hieroglyphic Luwian[13] and in Chinese scripts.[14]