Classifiers
Marcin Wągiel
Masaryk University in Brno
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Where do we find classifiers?
▶ often in East Asian languages:
Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Malay etc.
▶ sometimes in Native American languages:
Mayan languages, Tlingit, Mi’gmaq etc.
▶ extremely rare in IE languages:
English ‘five head of cattle’
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What is a classifier?
▶ CLs indicate the semantic class of a noun wrt its referent
▶ semantic classes
(1) a. sān
3
wèi
CL
lǎoshī
teacher
(Mandarin)
‘three teachers’
b. sān
3
zhī
CL
māo
cat
(Mandarin)
‘three cats’
c. sān
3
tóu
CL
niú
cattle
(Mandarin)
‘three head of cattle’
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What is a classifier?
(2) a. sān
3
méi
CL
yìngbì
coin
(Mandarin)
‘three coins’
b. sān
3
kē
CL
zhēnzhū
pearl
(Mandarin)
‘three pearls’
c. sān
3
běn
CL
shū
book
(Mandarin)
‘three books’
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What is a classifier?
(3) a. yon-mai-no
4-CL-GEN
pan
bread
(Japanese)
‘four slices of bread’
b. yon-ko-no
4-CL-GEN
pan
bread
(Japanese)
‘four buns’
c. yon-hon-no
4-CL-GEN
pan
bread
(Japanese)
‘four baguettes’
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What is a classifier?
▶ CLs allow for counting in classifier languages
▶ necessary in numeral phrases
(4) a. sān
3
běn
CL
shū
book
(Mandarin)
‘three books’
b. *sān
3
shū
book
(Mandarin)
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Types of classifiers
▶ objects, groups, kinds
(5) a. sān
3
zhī
CL
xióng
bear
(Mandarin)
‘three bears’
b. sān
3
qún
CL
xióng
bear
(Mandarin)
‘three herds of bears’
c. sān
3
zhǒng
CL
xióng
bear
(Mandarin)
‘three species of bears’
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Types of classifiers
(6) a. go-nin-no
5-CL-GEN
gakusei-ga
student-NOM
(Japanese)
‘five students’
b. go-tsui-no
5-CL-GEN
gakusei-ga
student-NOM
(Japanese)
‘five pairs of students’
c. go-kumi-no
5-CL-GEN
gakusei-ga
student-NOM
(Japanese)
‘five groups of students’
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Classifiers vs. massifiers
Classifier phrase
▶ classifiers = individuating classifiers, count-classifiers
(7) a. sān
3
tóu
CL
niú
cattle
(Mandarin)
‘three head of cattle’
b. three head of cattle (English)
XP
Numeral YP
CL NP
Noun
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Classifiers vs. massifiers
Measure phrase
▶ massifiers = measure classifiers, measure words
(8) a. sān
3
bēi
CL
shuǐ
water
(Mandarin)
‘three glasses of water’
b. three glasses of water (English)
XP
YP
Numeral Measure
NP
Noun
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Partly classifier languages
▶ classifiers can be optional
▶ Korean, Minangkabau (Malayan)
(9) a. tu(-myeong-ui)
2(-CL-GEN)
namja
man
(Korean)
‘two men’
b. duo
2
(ikue)
(CL)
anjiang
dog
(Minangkabau)
‘two dogs’
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Partly classifier languages
▶ classifiers can be required only with some numerals
▶ Mi’gmaq (Eastern Algonquian), Chol (Mayan)
(10) a. na’n-ijig
5-AGR
ji’nm-ug
man-PL
(Mi’gmaq)
‘five men’
b. *na’n
5
te’s-ijig
CL-AGR
ji’nm-ug
man-PL
(Mi’gmaq)
c. *asugom-ijig
6-AGR
ji’nm-ug
man-PL
(Mi’gmaq)
d. asugom
6
te’s-ijig
CL-AGR
ji’nm-ug
man-PL
(Mi’gmaq)
‘six men’
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Classifiers and number marking
Typological puzzle (Chierchia 1998)
▶ classifier languages: CL ⇒ *SG/PL
(11) a. sān
3
běn
CL
shū
book
(Mandarin)
‘three books’
b. *sān
3
shū
book
(Mandarin)
▶ non-classifier languages: SG/PL ⇒ *CL
(12) a. three books
b. *three book
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Classifiers and number marking
Languages with both SG/PL and CL
▶ never within one phrase
(13) a. yergu
2
had
CL
shenk
building
(Western Armenian)
‘two buildings’
b. yergu
2
shenk-er
building-PL
(Western Armenian)
‘two buildings’
c. *yergu
2
had
CL
shenk-er
building-PL
(Western Armenian)
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Classifiers and number marking
Syntactic explanation (Borer 2005)
▶ CL and PL compete for the same position
XP
Numeral YP
CL/PL NP
Noun
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Classifiers and number marking
Semantic explanation (Chierchia 1998)
▶ number individuates and allows for counting
▶ all nouns in CL languages are mass
(14) a. *shū-PL
book-PL
(Mandarin)
b. *sān
3
shū
book
(Mandarin)
c. *sān
3
běn
CL
shū
book
(Mandarin)
‘three books’
(15) a. *muds (English)
b. *three muds (English)
c. three buckets of mud
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Classifiers and number marking
Semantic explanation (Chierchia 1998)
▶ number-neutral nouns require CLs
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Not so quickly!
This picture is too simplistic
▶ CL languages display the mass/count distinction
(16) a. *sān
3
gè
CL
shuǐ
water
(Mandarin)
b. sān
3
bēi
CL
shuǐ
water
(Mandarin)
‘three glasses of water’
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Not so quickly!
This picture is too simplistic
▶ some counting modifiers in Japanese require countable
denotations (Sudo 2017)
(17) a. suuhyaku-no
hundreds-GEN
kaban
bag
(Japanese)
‘hundreds of bags’
b. *suuhyaku-no
hundreds-GEN
ase
sweat
(Japanese)
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Not so quickly!
This picture is too simplistic
▶ Mandarin measure marker de is incompatible with
individuated readings (Li 2011)
(18) a. wǒ de
my
jiǔliàng
drinking
shì
be
sān
3
píng
CL
de
DE
jiǔ
wine
(Mandarin)
‘My drinking ability is three bottles of wine.’
b. *tā
he
kāi
open
le
PFV
sān
3
píng
CL
de
DE
jiǔ
wine
(Mandarin)
‘He opened three bottles of wine.’
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Not so quickly!
This picture is too simplistic
▶ in some languages bare nouns do not need CLs (Wilhelm
2008)
(19) a. solághe
5
k’ásba
chicken
(Dëne Sųłiné)
‘five chickens’
b. solághe
5
łı
dog
(Dëne Sųłiné)
‘five dogs’
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