The Acquisition of Numeral Classifiers: The Case of Japanese Children 9783110914955, 9783110183672

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The Acquisition of Numeral Classifiers

W DE G

Studies on Language Acquisition 27

Editor Peter Jordens

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin - New York

The Acquisition of Numeral Classifiers The Case of Japanese Children

by Kasumi Yamamoto

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yamamoto, Kasumi. The acquisition of numeral classifiers : the case of Japanese children / by Kasumi Yamamoto. p. cm. - (Studies on language acquisition ; 27) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-018367-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Japanese language — Numerals. 2. Japanese language — Classifiers. 3. Language acquisition — Case studies. I. Title. II. Series. PL579.Y36 2005 495.6'019-dc22 2005011307

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at .

ISBN 3 11 0183676 © Copyright 2005 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design: Sigurd Wendland, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

To my late brother, Koichi Yamamoto

Acknowledgements

It is impossible for me to adequately express my thanks to all the individuals who supported me all throughout this project. Without their support and understanding it would have been impossible for me to have completed this book. I must first thank John Whitman at Cornell Universisty and Frank Keil at Yale University for their guidance and influence on my academic pursuits. John helped me to conceive this study and his comments on my syntactic and semantic analysis of numeral classifier system were immeasurable. Frank, who with his lively interest in human cognition and everything else, and enormous energy and depth in research, guided me through endless data collection and analysis, and helped me go beyond my initial conceptions. I have also profited greatly from the cooperation of other scholars. I would like to thank Yasuhiro Shirai, Yo Matsumoto and Nobuko Uchida, for sharing their knowledge on Japanese classifier research. Also, Alexandra Aikhenvald led me to various important sources of issues on classifiers. I profited from the openness and generousity of Lois Bloom, Robin Campbell, Eve Clark, Sandra Levey, Lise Menn, Katherine Nelson, Cathy Sandhofer, Annette Karmiloff-Smith and Michael Thomas, who shared their insights on first language acquisition in response to my questions. I especially thank Emilio Englade for his comments and editorial assistance. Without his help, the book would not have turned into the shape it now assumes. Needless to say, I am solely responsible for any deficiencies that may still remain. A Japan Research Travel Grant in the East Asia Program and Cognitive Studies Research Grant in the Cognitive Studies from Cornell University, helped to get this project off the ground. A World Fellowhsip from Williams College gave me the financial freedom to travel back and forth between the U.S. and Japan for data collection. And an Oakley Center Fellowhship, Williams enabled me to complete the book. Also this research could not have been done without the cooperation from the teachers and the children at daycare centers and elementary schools in my hometown, lioka, Chiba, Japan. I am indebted to each of them. They have my deepest gratitude. I also wish to express my gratitude for the support I received from my parents, who let their youngest child leave home and country be-

viii

Acknowledgements

cause they believed in the necessity of her fulfilling her goal. My sister and my brother-in-law kept me free from all the worries and responsibilities that a child has with elderly parents. And special thanks to my husband, Frank, for his endless support and encouragement throughout the project, and his critical comments on my writing. And finally, my precious son Stone, who has shown me the power and miracle of children ever since he was born. Now, mom can play Monopoly with you all night long. Spring 2005, Williamstown, MA.

Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4.

What are numeral classifiers? Structure of the numeral classifier system Comparative lexical-semantic analysis Semantic universality and idiosyncrasy of classifier systems

1 1 11 21 48

Chapter 2 Previous acquisition research on numeral classifiers

54

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

56 61 71 76 78 80 82 82 94

Thai acquisition research Mandarin acquisition research Cantonese acquisition research Hokkien acquisition research Kilivila acquisition research Korean acquisition research Garo acquisition research Japanese acquisition research Universality in the acquisition of numeral classifiers

Chapter 3 Present study

97

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

97 100 105 110 113 126 141

Findings from research in cognitive development Findings from research in language acquisition Alternative hypothesis The present study Experiment 1: Production test Experiment 2: Strong contrast comprehension test Experiment 3: Weak contrast comprehension test

Chapter 4

General discussion and conclusion

154

1. Acquisition process of Japanese numeral classifiers 2. Language production vs. comprehension 3. What affects the acquisition process of Japanese numeral classifiers? 4. Closing remarks

154 158 168 179

Notes

181

χ

Contents

References

190

Index

209

Chapter 1 Introduction

Numeral classifiers, which are widespread across the languages of East and Southeast Asia and Oceania, are a grammatical device that reflects how speakers categorize objects that they count or quantify. Speakers of classifier languages classify nouns on the basis of their referents' attributes, such as animate versus inanimate, human versus animal, and shape versus function. Therefore, as a significant body of research has clearly indicated, patterns of acquisition of classifiers are an important source of information about underlying patterns of semantic and conceptual development (see discussions in Adams and Conklin 1973; Clark 1977; Muraishi 1983; Craig 1986; Matsumoto 1987; Carpenter 1987, 1991; Yamamoto and Keil 2000). There are a number of semantic and grammatical accounts of numeral classifiers (Greenberg 1972; Adams and Conklin 1973; Denny 1976; T'sou 1973; Allan 1977; Goral 1978; Barz and Diller 1985; Kegl and Schley 1986; Lee 1987; Kiyomi 1992; Croft 1994; Bisang 1999; Löbel 2000 to name a few), but defining numeral classifiers has always been problematic, and defining numeral classifier languages even more so. Chapter 1 then, presents syntactic and lexical-semantic characterizations of numeral classifier phrases and a discussion of attendant problems and particularities in determining what constitutes the nature of numeral classifiers. Following this syntactic and lexical-semantic overview, I will present a detailed analysis of the semantic properties of numeral classifiers based on a comparative analysis of the numeral classifier systems in four languages from four different language families in East and Southeast Asia. 1. What are numeral classifiers? 1.1. Syntax In most European languages, a quantity expression consists of a numeral, a noun and plural morphology on one or both, such as "three

2

Chapter I: Introduction

pencils" in English. However, in many languages of East and Southeast Asia, as well as in many languages of the New World, New Guinea, Australia, and Africa, a quantity expression consists of a numeral, a noun 1 and an additional element that is compulsory in this construction. Consider the following Japanese and Thai examples: (1) Japanese enpitsu san-bon pencil three 'three pencils' (2) Thai ma si tua dog four 'four dogs'

This additional element is called a numeral classifier, reflecting the fact that it is always obligatory whenever a numeral is used in a phrase and classifies nouns based on some subset of their endowed properties. For example, -bon in the Japanese example is a numeral classifier for long objects and is used for objects like pencils, umbrellas, cigarettes, belts, carrots, streets, etc., whereas tua is a numeral classifier for animals in Thai. In oversimplified pedagogical treatments, numeral classifier constructions are frequently introduced as basically equivalent to English measure phrases denoted as "two sheets of paper" or "three heads of lettuce." In fact, this characterization is misleading and stems from a misidentification of very different phenomena. It is significant to note that in a numeral classifier phrase, the numeral and classifier are always adjacent and form a syntactic constituent without any element intervening between them, whereas in an English measure phrase, a numeral and measure word can be separated by an adjective or other modifiers. This contrast reflects the fact that classifiers are bound morphemes in languages like Japanese and Korean, as well as in South and North American Indian languages and inflected Indie languages, while they are considered as independent lexemes in languages like Thai, Burmese and Vietnamese (Aikhenvald 2000). As Aikhenvald argues, the status of numeral classifiers needs to be determined based on language internal criteria. But, in

What are numeral classifiers?

3

general, they are treated as a separate word class from nouns, and in some languages as a subclass of adjectives; thus unlike measure words in English, numeral classifiers do not have independent nominal status. Examples: (3) English (a) three sheets of paper (b) three sheets of large paper (c) three large sheets of paper (4) Japanese (a) N Num-CL kami san-mai paper three (b)Adj N Num-CL ookii kami san-mai large paper three (c)N Num Adj CL *kami son ookii mai paper three large (5) Thai

(a) N Num CL kradäat saam phcen paper three (b)N Adj Num CL kradäat näa saam phcen paper thick three (c)N Num Adj CL *kradaat saam näa phcen paper three thick (6) Vietnamese

(a) Num CL N ba to giay three paper

4

Chapter 1: Introduction

(b)Num CL ba to three (c) Num Adj *ba Ion three

N Adj giay Ion paper big CL N to giay big paper

(7) Chinese

(a) Num san three (b)Num san three (c)Num san three

CL zhan

N zhi paper CL Adj N zhang da zhi big paper Adj CL N da zhang zhi big paper

From the examples above, we can see that all three English phrases (3a-c) are well-formed, but when an adjective intervenes between numeral and classifier, as in the Japanese (4c), Thai (5c) and Vietnamese (6c) examples, the result is ill-formed. The exception to this case is in Chinese (7c), where the Num-CL constituent is broken up by an adjective. The adjective da (big) in the Chinese example (7b) can be indicative of categorical size (e.g. large-size paper, mid-size paper and smallsize paper) or just relative size. A phrase like (7c) would only be acceptable with an interpretation that gives emphatic reference to relative size. This pattern is acceptable only with the adjective da, which can express the pragmatic content of surprise or exclamation. The collocation is parallel to English expressions such as "damn big sheet of paper" or "damn big dictionary," and similarly interjected equivalents such as British "un-damn-likely" or "un-bloody-likely" are comparable to this expression. Numeral classifier constructions attest four possible orderings, (Greenberg 1972, Adams and Conklin 1973)2: CL-Num-N, N-CL-Num, Num-CL-N (Vietnamese and Chinese), N-Num-CL (Thai and Japanese3). Greenberg (1972) in his seminal work, points out that of the six possible word orderings among the three elements, only the preceding four combinations occur; CL-N-Num and Num-N-CL do not. Thus, Greenberg argues as I have above, that numeral and classifier are always adjacent

What are numeral classifiers?

5

and appear to form a constituent, their relative order fixed within a language, even though the placement of the numeral and classifier constituents with respect to the head noun may vary. The hypothesis that the numeral and classifier form a constituent is also supported by evidence that in most numeral classifier languages, the numeral and classifier combination can be used anaphorically without overt expression of the head noun as in the Vietnamese example (8), and by the fact that phonologically the numeral and classifier combination bears only one stress, usually on the numeral, in many languages (Greenberg 1972),4 We see, then, that numeral classifiers are the elements which fill in the CL position in the following four patterns: CL-Num-N, N-CL-Num, Num-CL-N, N-Num-CL. (8) Vietnamese (Goral 1978) anh muon cuon sack nao you want CL for books book which 'Which book do you want?' cuon kia CL for books that 'That one' In some languages, numeral classifiers appear in various syntactic constructions with N or Num but not both, such as in anaphoric and deictic expressions. For example, Vietnamese has the following patterns: (9) Vietnamese (Goral 1978) (a) 0 + CL + cay CL for trees 'peach tree'

(b) V + nhay jump 'make

N (where the numeral is deleted) däo peach

Num + CL hai cai two generic CL two jumps'

6

Chapter I: Introduction

(c)CL + N + Adj +Det con cho nho nay CL for animals dog small this 'this small dog' Thai has the following patterns of this sort: (10) Thai (Haas 1942) (a) N + CL + Det ma tua ni dog CL for animals this 'this dog' (b)N + CL + Adj ma tua leg dog CL for animals little 'a small dog'

And Chinese has the following pattern with determiner + classifier: (11) Chinese Det + CL + nei ge that general 'that person'

N ren CL for person

In the Vietnamese example (9a) the numeral is omitted 5 and in (9b) the Num-CL construction is used to enumerate an action.6 In the Vietnamese example (9c), the Thai examples (10a,b) and the Chinese example (11), the CL is used in combination with determiners. These are examples of some of the additional non-numerating uses of numeral classifiers. 1.2. Semantics I have so far discussed numeral classifiers in terms of their syntactic positions and defined any morpheme in a classifier position, i.e., adjacent to a numeral expression in an enumerating phrase, as a numeral classifier. Although this is how numeral classifiers are defined in many

What are numeral classifiers?

7

studies (e.g. Burling 1965, Cornyn & Roop 1968), in this study I define numeral classifiers more narrowly. I do so because based on a solely syntactic definition of this sort, many elements occur in a CL position. Consider the Japanese examples (12a-f) and the Burmese example (13): (12) Japanese (a) ninjin go hon carrot five CL for long, slender objects 'five carrots' (b) ninjin go kiro carrot five kilograms 'five kilos of carrots' (c) ninjin go daasu carrot five dozen 'five dozen carrots' (d) ninjin go hako carrot five box 'five boxes of carrots' (e) ninjin go taba carrot five bunch 'five bunches of carrots' (f) ninjin go syurui carrot five kind 'five kinds of carrots' (13) Burmese (Goral 1978) hkwe' hna hkwe' cup two CL for cup 'two cups' Framed within a purely syntactic definition, (12a)-(13) can all be identified as numeral classifiers, but in this study I consider only -hon in example (12a) to be a true numeral classifier expression. Amounts specified by measuring units like -kiro (kilo) and -daasu (dozen) in examples (12b) and (12c) reside in measure phrases, while amounts specified by containers like hako (box) in example (12d), unspecified amounts like taba (bunch) in example (12e) and idiomatic expressions defining referents by their type or kind like syurui (kind) in examples (12f) are additional sub-types of measure phrases; and finally the Burmese example

8

Chapter I : Introduction

(13) involves a repeater.7 In order to clarify the differences between these three kinds of elements, it is necessary to rely on semantic as well as syntactic criteria. Variously interpreted, numeral classifiers are usually classified as qualifiers or kind-based words, while measure words are classified as quantifiers or quantity-based words (Adams and Conklin 1973; Downing 1984, 1996), because numeral classifiers reflect an inherent or salient quality of the referent that the head noun refers to, but measure words reflect length, weight or the amount of the referent quite apart from its natural properties. In one important line of research, Downing (1984, 1996) suggests that even a clear-cut case of a measure word still carries information of some intrinsic property of the referent because we can say "a pound of sand" but we are highly unlikely to say "a pound of government." In this sense, measure words may possibly carry more information than a "default classifier" or "unmarked classifier" which is used to fill out a classifier position when a specific classifier is hard to determine or unknown. But the fundamental difference between measure words and classifiers is that measure words "impose a unit of measurement" on all referents which overrides any difference in their natural composition (Downing 1984, 1996). Thus, a measurement of weight such as a "pound" can be used for diverse entities possessed of weight, such as oranges, fish or sand. On the other hand, a true classifier is determined by what Downing calls the natural unit that each referent inherently belongs to; oranges may be classified by a fruit classifier or a round-shape classifier, fish by an animal classifier and grains of sand by a shape classifier, but these uses are not interchangeable. Moreover, measure words impose a [-count] interpretation, while numeral classifiers impose a [+count] interpretation on the associated NP, as the following examples indicate.

(14) NP + *nunoji cloth '(I) put

Num + MW son meetoru o sorezore katazuke-ta three meter Ace. each put away-Past away each of three meters of cloth'

(15) NP + Num + CL nunoji son mai ο sorezore katazuke-ta cloth three CL for thin flat things Ace. each put away-Past '(I) put away each of three pieces of cloth'

What are numeral classifiers?

9

(16) NP + (Ace.) + Num + MW *orenji ο go kiro sorezore tabe-ta orange Ace. five kilo each eat-Past '(I) ate five kilos of oranges one by one' (17)NP + (Ace.) + Num + CL orenji ο go ko sorezore tabe-ta orange Ace. five CL for round thing each eat-Past '(I) ate five oranges one by one' "Three meters of cloth" in example (14) denotes one single piece of cloth, therefore the distributive quantifier sorezore 'each' is infelicitous, unless it is somehow indicated that there are three pieces of one-meterlong cloth. On the other hand "three-CL-cloth" in (15) indicates three discrete pieces of cloth, therefore the sentence with sorezore is grammatical. In example (16) "five kilos of oranges" does not focus on each individual orange but presents them as one unit, 8 so again distributive quantification is infelicitous, while "five-CL-oranges" in (17) indicates five individual oranges, which therefore can be eaten one by one. Consequently classifiers individualize the objects classified, whereas measure words totalize the objects measured. Put more simply, NP + Num + MW (measure word) is grammatically a mass NP, while NP + Num + CL is a count NP. Another class of elements which occur in the syntactic slot for classifiers are repeaters and partial repeaters, which are reduplications of the head noun or a part of the head noun. As an illustration, I reintroduce example (13) as a case of a full repeater and provide an example of a Japanese partial repeater. (18) Burmese (Goral 1978) hkwe' hna hkwe' cup two CL for cup 'two cups' (19) Japanese haiku_ ni ku verse two CL for haiku verse 'two haiku verse'

10

Chapter 1: Introduction

Notably, there are no repeaters in languages like Vietnamese and Chinese that have "Num + CL + N" order, where CL precedes N. Repeaters appear to be limited to languages like Japanese, Thai and Burmese, which have a "N + Num + CL" order (Goral 1978).9 (20) Vietnamese (Num + CL + N) (Goral 1978) mot cai bat one CL bowl One bowl' (21) Chinese (Num + CL + N) Hang ben shit two CL book 'two books' (22) Thai (N + Num + CL) (Haas 1942) kham si kham word four repeater 'four words' Unlike true numeral classifiers, repeaters do not add any more information to what the head noun contributes, they appear merely to fill in the classifier slot and occupy a position in the syntactic configuration. Lexically, repeaters are interesting in that they show that in CL languages, some element is required to "support" the numeral even when that element is semantically vacuous. In this work I treat repeaters as a sub-class of true numeral classifiers, whereas Downing (1984, 1996) considers repeaters as true numeral classifiers, a viewpoint that she bases on Burmese data (Pe 1965; Burling 1965) in which some repeaters actually functioned as numeral classifiers for different head nouns. In such a case we should consider the repeater as a true numeral classifier, because then we would be able to analyze what natural unit the repeater signals based on the collective data where the repeater is used with other head nouns. Based on these considerations, if an entity in a classifier slot is phonologically identical to the head noun (or, in the case of a partial repeater, it is identical to part of the phonological form of the head noun) and never occurs with other nouns, then I classify it as a repeater. In terms of language-specific characteristics, the occurrence of repeaters

What are numeral classifiers?

11

may have some predictable semantic characteristics; according to Carpenter (1987), for instance, most Thai repeaters are related to body parts, plant parts and locative nouns. However, repeaters make no semantic contribution independent of the head noun, and as a class are syntactically or conventionally motivated rather than semantically selected. To summarize so far, in this study numeral classifiers are the elements which fill in the CL position in the following four constructions involving nominal enumeration: CL-Num-N, Num-CL-N, N-CL-Num and N-Num-CL. Classifiers are selected on the basis of inherent or pronounced characteristics of the head noun, and are distinct from measure words like 'kilo' and 'gallon,' amounts expressed by containers like 'box' and 'cup,' unspecified amounts like 'bunch' and 'herd', and idiomatic expressions like 'kind of or 'type of A sub-class of classifiers, not included in the scope of this study, is constituted by repeaters. 2. Structure of the numeral classifier system For some time the semantic characteristics of numeral classifiers have been questioned from two separate but integrated perspectives: Is the classifier system structured or unstructured, and is it a cognitive or culture-based system? These are empirical questions whose affinities can be outlined as follows. Studies in the tradition of cross-linguistic typology have tended to view the numeral classifier system as relatively structured, with a few universal features based on human cognition (i.e., Adams and Conklin 1973; Allan 1977; Bisang 1999). Aligned with this orientation is a corpus of research which considers animacy, shape and function as recurring universal features, and that holds that classifiers are hierarchically structured in those categories, or at least in some categories. In contrast, studies on individual languages have been inclined to consider numeral classifiers as an unstructured and chaotic system, with culturally-bound features being dominant. For example, in a groundbreaking study, Haas (1942) concluded that in Thai it is almost impossible to devise rules for choosing a proper classifier for a given noun. Research from such a language-specific approach has continually pointed to the limitations endemic in folk taxonomies 10 and has advocated that prototype analysis would best portray the semantic system of numeral classifiers (i.e., Carpenter 1987, Matsumoto 1993, Downing

12

Chapter I: Introduction

1996). Given the variability of these accounts, one can assume that the most accurate depiction of the semantics of classifier systems would lie somewhere in-between these two polarities (Goral 1978, Senft 1996), and thus it is imperative to analyze classifiers from multiple perspectives. That is, because the numeral classifier system is a cognitive-based but culturally-biased system, the former contributes to a relatively structured hierarchy, while the latter does not, and these two asymmetrical aspects complement each other to function as one complete system. In the sections to follow, I review the lines of research significant in both inter- and intra-language studies in more detail. With respect to cross-linguistic typological studies, two pioneering investigations have laid the foundation for the semantic analysis of the numeral classifier system. In their research, Adams and Conklin (1973) and Allan (1977) primarily focused on the semantic universals revealed in classifier systems. These linguists portrayed classifier systems as a specifically linguistic representation of the human cognitive system, especially derived from visual perception. Before turning my focus to intra-language studies, I discuss another typological study by Denny (1976), who analyzed the recurring universal features of classifier systems from a socio/cultural point of view. Then, finally, I review studies on individual languages in conjunction with my own comparative analysis of Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese numeral classifier systems. Indeed, my attempt here is to clarify what is universally shared among all these studies and what is idiosyncratic in each, and to construct a schema that is applicable to various classifier systems. This purpose raises the issue of how best to portray a system of numeral classifiers, which are so multidimensional, being partially well-structured and transparent, and partially heterogeneous, metaphorical and opaque.

2.1. Cross-linguistic studies 2.7.7. Adams and Conklin's (1973) view The experimental research conducted by Adams and Conklin (1973) involved an analysis of 1406 classifiers from 37 Asian languages including representatives of the Malayo-Polynesian, Austro-Asiatic, MonKhmer, Sino-Tibetan, Altaic, Dravidian, and Indo-Aryan families. From their study, they made the judgment that animacy, shape and function

Structure of the numeral classifier system

13

were the primary categories of the classifier systems under examination. Among these three categories, the animate vs. inanimate classificatory division appeared to be the most basic. Without exception, every Asian language they studied included animacy as a classifier category, although there were various degrees of specificity within the animate category. For example, the Micronesian language family (represented by Gilbertese, Nauru, Ponapean, Sonsorol-Tobi, and Trukese), and many non-Micronesian languages (e.g. languages of the Tai family) include both human and animal in the animate category, but there are languages (e.g. Dravidian languages) that distinguish animacy based on a human and non-human differentiation, where animals are included in the nonhuman category. In many languages with a human/non-human distinction, the human category is then further subdivided based on social rank or kinship, while the animal category is much less well-defined. In other languages, an animal is more variously classified, according to its status, size, religious significance, habitat and even its function, for instance, whether it is used as a vehicle or mode of transport. Also, shape parameters very often determine specific subclasses of animals, or even override the animate category; Chrau, for example, has a specific classifier for large bovine animals such as cows or four-hoofed, grazing creatures like deer, but uses a classifier for long, thin objects to count snakes or fish and a classifier for flat things to count turtles. Next to animacy, shape is another prominent parameter in the classifier system. Adams and Conklin assert that this category is derived from a metaphorical extension of shapes from plant parts: Despite the fact that there is a clear distinction between animate and inanimate categories in many classifier systems, surprisingly, none of the languages they studied have a specific category for plants. Part of the problem with this is that they repeatedly encountered the three basic shapes (long, round and flat) that correspond to the most frequently used plant parts: stalk, fruit and leaf. Adams and Conklin concluded from this observation that the three basic shapes originated in plant parts and became applicable to mixed domains of animate or inanimate objects and abstracts. Furthermore, the primary physical parameters, length, roundness and flatness, can be combined with secondary parameters such as 1) rigidity or flexibility, 2) relative size, 3) empty vs. full, 4) regularity vs. irregularity in shape, 5) part vs. whole, 6) horizontal vs. vertical and 7) edge or outline. This characterization creates a more elaborated shape-

14

Chapter I : Introduction

based classification, with varying degrees of complexity dependent on the language. The remaining classifiers can be generalized as involving functionbased classification. Adams and Conklin claim that this is the most language-specific and culture-bound category; evidently, since this category varies idiosyncratically, it is very difficult to generalize down to more specific sub-categories. Yet according to Adams and Conklin, "a large number of classifiers have to do with written and oral speech," which are classified in several ways, for instance: by the functional type of the object, such as books, newspapers and magazines; by the form of presentation such as bound and unbound; and by literary form, such as plays and poems. Similarly, tools or weapons can be classified as a specific category, but functionally categorized groups in some languages may be categorized by shape in others. With this foreshadowing, Adams and Conklin discuss a variety of language-specific classifications, such as those based on kinship, social rank or object function, which are all important components of their classification model. Because of the pervasiveness of shape-based classification and the absence of auditory, tactile and olfactory-based categorization in this subtype, they argue that shape-based classification is derivative of the visual salience of a referent. Thus, they conclude that visual salience is a universally shared feature, with vision-based categorization related to basic cognitive categories. The parameters for classifiers in Adams and Conklin's analysis are summarized in Table 1.1. Table 1.1. Parameters for classifiers adapted from Adams and Conklin (1973) 1) animacy -human -social rank/kinship/age/occupation/sex -animal -status/size/habitat 2)shape -long -flat

* -horizontal/vertical *-edge * "-rigidity/flexibility

Structure of the numeral classifier system -round

15

* ""-relative size **-empty/full * "-irregularity/regularity """-part/whole (* Secondary parameters specifically for longness. ** Secondary parameters that can be combined with any of the three primary shape parameters.

3) function -written/oral speech (e.g. book vs. newspaper vs. magazine/bound vs. unbound/ play vs. poem) -tools -handles -transportation -etc.

2.7.2. Allan's (1977) view Of related interest and importance is a study by Allan (1977), who presents a comparison of more than 50 classifier languages encompassing Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania. His work includes numeral classifier languages, concordial classifier languages," predicate classifier languages,12 and intra-locative classifier languages.13 It is an extensive work not only in terms of its attention to categories of classification but also in its identification of defining aspects of classifier languages. In this section I focus on Allan's analysis of classifier categories. In essence, Allan proposes seven categories of classification, each of which has several subcategories as shown in Table 1.2. As a matter of nomenclature, the term 'material' in Allan's taxonomy means "the essence of the entities referred to by nouns," in other words, what essentially the object is. The first four categories plus the first subcategory in the fifth category (the line in Table 1.2 indicates this division) occur only in classifier languages in which, as we have seen, the classification system refers to the prominent, innate characteristics of referents, with multiple combinations of different categories (features) forming a classifier. Thus, in general, Allan considers material (the essence of entities like animate or inanimate being) as the primary feature, from which the rest of the categories are derived. This designation then, is consistent with Adams and Conklin's generalization that animacy is the most basic feature in numeral classifier systems.

16

Chapter 1: Introduction

Table 1.2. List of classifier categories adapted from Allan (1977) 1) material -animacy -abstract and verbal nouns (e.g. CLs for action) -inanimacy 2)shape -one-dimensional -two-dimensional -three-dimensional -non-dimensional shape (e.g. 'prominent curved exterior,' 'hollow') 3) consistency -flexible -hard or rigid -non-discrete 4) size (often combined with a shape category) -big -small 5) location -salient and inherent locative nouns (e.g. countries, gardens) -contingent locative nouns 6) arrangement -objects in specific and non-inherent configurations (e.g. 'loop', 'coil') -objects in a specific position (e.g. Objects in a row') -objects in specific non-inherent distribution (e.g. 'bunch 'herd') 7) quanta (about 12 subcategories) Allan persuasively argues that the recurrence of similar noun categories from so many different languages from various regions of the world is due to the fact that "classifiers reflect perceptual grouping." The semantic universals in the classifier systems originate in the similarity of human perceptions and those perceptions "stimulate cognitive classification of the world which is reflected by linguistic categories and classes." While Adams and Conklin in their investigation emphasized

Structure of the numeral classifier system

17

visual perception Allan employs a broader range of sensory experience focusing on both visual and tactile perception. The exception is a classification based on color. Even though color relies on visual perception, classifier systems are devoid of color-based categories, just as there are no olfactory or auditory categories attested in the numeral classifier systems. Speculating about this, Allan states that since color perception is affected by light and will be invisible in darkness, color does not provide a reliable source for categorization. Allan concludes that classifier classification can be "culture-bound" or "culture-free": . . . some nouns are by convention variably classified as a result of the intrinsic characteristics of their denotata, while other nouns may be reclassified in certain situations of utterance which will only be defined by analysis of the pragmatic rules for each language . . . women are sometimes classified with animals, and separately from men, in Kiriwina (Malinowski 1920) . . . in Burmese, the Buddha and associated icons are in a different class from ghosts and ogres, which are classified with animals. (Burling 1965)

Despite this line of reasoning, Allan still puts language-specific classifiers aside and elaborates upon them only in the context of their being a meaningful lexical type capable of conveying a speaker's pragmatic intention in a discourse.

2.1.3. Denny's (1976) view Denny (1976) also affirms the existence of recurring similarities in the semantic categories of classifiers from different languages as proposed by Adams and Conklin and Allan. However, Denny views classifiers as reflecting "how humans interact with the world," handle objects, manipulate objects and perceive certain concepts. Denny's three major categories are based on the various facets of human interaction: physical, functional, and social. His generalizations capture not only the shared categories of classifier systems among different classifier languages, but also point to the importance of the fact that the classifier system in a given language is specific to the technological advancement, social hierarchies and cultural values of the language community. Denny's first classificatory category, physical interaction, categorizes objects in terms of how they are manipulated. This mode of interaction is further subcategorized by spatial configurations (e.g. one-dimensional,

18

Chapter 1: Introduction

two-dimensional and non-extended class). While this subcategory is identical to Adams and Conklin's shape category, Denny deploys the notion of the relative extension of spatial dimensionality, based on Friedrich's (1970) framework. Friedrich made the particularly important point that these configurations have to do with relative extension in three spatial dimensions, and not with shape concepts such as round, flat or cylindrical, or size concepts such as long or small. (Denny 1976: 126)

Another important point made by Denny is that spatial configurations can be further combined with the strength (flexibility and hardness) of a material, but the precise semantic configuration within this category will differ from culture to culture. For example, some languages have only an extended and non-extended distinction, while another language may have much more complex subcategories. Thus, in the case of Eskimo, Denny reports, there are only two contrasts, extended vs. non-extended; for example, the demonstrative for extended objects is used for a harpoon and the demonstrative for non-extended objects is used for a ball. On the other hand, the Tarascan numeral classifiers have three contrasts, non-extended vs. extended (one-dimensional) vs. extended (twodimensional), while Ojibway has five spatial contrasts using various combinations of extendedness and the flexibility of objects. Denny's presentation of functional interaction, his second category, is limited to a few examples from Burmese by Burling (1965) which include classifiers for clothing of the body, cutting tools, transport, written materials and loop-shaped objects, etc., which seems to reveal that this category is the most diversified and hardest from which to draw generalizations. Adams and Conklin also identified a functional category, noting that this was the most culture-specific category. They used this category as a sort of grab bag in which any classifier which did not fall neatly into a proposed universal category could be dropped. However, this category requires deeper and more critical language-internal analyses, as well as further cross-linguistic examination. Denny's third category, social interaction, is identical to Adams and Conklin's animate and inanimate distinction and overlaps with Allan's material category. According to Adams and Conklin, and Allan, this category reflects the inherent nature of the whole entity, what the entity actually is, qua what its ontological category should be. However Denny argues that this category shows how human societies differentiate their members, with the distinction falling along the dichotomous lines

Structure of the numeral classifier system

19

of human vs. animal, human vs. non-human, male vs. female, young vs. old, superior vs. inferior and so on. Denny's account thus emphasizes the culture-specific classification of the world, while Adams and Conklin, and Allan's accounts emphasize a basic framework based on a cognitive classification. Superficially, these two approaches seem contradictory, but as Lee (1987) argues, they complement each other. Among universal features, we can claim that animacy and shape are derived from human cognition. Although there is an on-going debate on whether early categorization is merely perceptual or both perceptual and conceptual (non-perceptual), researchers agree that infants start forming categorization, initially, at least, based on shared perceptual features. Moreover, as in Rakison and Poulin-Dubois (2001) remark, "the ability to recognize objects as animate or as inanimate is thought to be one of the most fundamental cognitive process." However, in the classifier system, more precise classification in each domain is strongly influenced by socio-cultural norms. For example, in the human category, classifications based on sex, social hierarchies or age are determined by socio-cultural values in the given language community, whereas in the shape category, how the primary configurational parameters of 1-D, 2-D and 3-D are combined with secondary features and the depiction of various secondary features are determined more conventionally based on physical interaction with the objects; and finally, the functional category is most prone to sociocultural conditioning.

2.2. Structure of classifier categories Given that these universally shared classifications are cognitively derived and culturally extended, the question is: how do they form an a priori system of numeral classifiers as a whole? Although Adams and Conklin (1973), and Allan (1977) do not explicitly discuss how their proposed categories are organized in the classifier system, their arguments imply some sort of hierarchical relationship among these categories. For example, postulating, as they do, the primacy of animacy as the most important prototypical category indicates that there should be inanimacy as a category in opposition to animacy, and that a delineation between human and animal shows an evident dichotomy in the animate category. Moreover, categories like shape, function and consis-

20

Chapter I: Introduction

tency allow us to ponder how the subclasses of the inanimate category could be structured. The internal structure of the shape category is clearly hierarchical, with primary distinctions being further combined with secondary features. Indeed, researchers like Sanches (1977), Denny (1979), Croft (1994) and Bisang (1999) have constructed a hierarchical representation of the lexical-semantic system of classifiers. Among these researchers, Sanches and Denny provide a detailed taxonomic structure of the Japanese numeral classifier system, while Croft and Bisang propose a more general hierarchical framework in order to analyze various classifier systems from different language groups. For example, Bisang (1999: 125) has proposed a lexical-semantic hierarchy, where animacy is placed at the top node. Then, animacy is subcategorized into animate/human and inanimate/nonhuman, which reflects the first distinctions almost universally made in classifier systems. Each category is further subcategorized into lower nodes, such that a secondary criterion to [+human] is status; the second primary criterion to [+inanimate] is shape, and secondary to the criterion of shape are physical parameters such as orientation and rigidity; a last criterion is based on the nature or function of a noun. Considering that cognition-based and universally-shared categories form the foundation of the classifier system, I postulate a very basic framework of the numeral classifier system in Figure 1.1 (a). The explicit form of this framework may alter depending on a language or a language family's specific properties. A case in point is Japanese. The Japanese classifier system has no classifier whose referential domain overrides the dichotomous animacy distinction. Therefore, the basic structure of the system is represented in Figure 1.1 (b). Also, languages of the Tai family have a differentiated division of human and nonhuman categories with animals being classified by inanimate classifiers (often shape classifiers). Thus, the basic semantic structure is as in Figure 1.1 (c). By employing the framework in Figure 1.1 (a) as a base, each classifier system evolves into a more complex language-specific pattern through interaction with culture-based features. In the next section, I shall discuss how idiosyncratic features characterize the numeral classifier system and how they are woven into the system.

Structure of the numeral classifier system

21

(a) Base Inanimate

Animate Animal

Human

Function

Shape

(b) Japanese (Animate)

Inanimate Animal

Human

Function

Shape

(c) Tai

Inanimate

(Animate) Human

(Animal) Shape

Function

Figure 1.1. Hierarchical framework of classifier systems

3. Comparative lexical-semantic

analysis

3.1. Data sources For my analysis of the four main languages studied in this section, data for each language was collected from varied sources, with the Japanese data drawn from Downing (1984, 1996) and Matsumoto (1991, 1993). Analyzed in their own right, both researchers' works constitute major endeavors, providing compelling and comprehensive semantic analyses of Japanese numeral classifiers. In Downing's case, she first selected about 150 numeral classifiers by employing a newspaper word-frequency count in conjunction with an analysis of their use in oral and written texts. She then selected 27 classifiers for the core inventory and 47 classifiers for an extended inventory based on the frequency of use by her 15 informants. (Note that her inventory includes repeaters as true classifiers.) Matsumoto's research entailed an analysis of about 30 numeral classifiers, but he did not specify how he selected these classifiers, and most of them overlapped with Downing's core inventory, with a portion belonging to Downing's extended inventory. Note that in the

22

Chapter I: Introduction

present study I refer only to Downing's core and extended inventories because classifiers outside of those inventories are obsolete and used only in very specialized contexts. The Vietnamese data that I use are derived from Goral (1978), whose work is based on Nguyen Ding Hoa's Vietnamese-English Dictionary, from which Goral identified 140 classifiers. Goral tested whether the characterization of classifiers in the dictionary matched the actual use of classifiers by two native speakers of Vietnamese. Although he tested only 23 classifiers, the results were satisfactory, and therefore he assumed that the rest of the classifiers in the dictionary would be accurately defined. Since Goral makes no frequency count information available, we have no idea which classifiers are more important in daily use, but Goral does provide a semantic feature analysis of those 140 classifiers which I will make use of. Out of the welter of Chinese dialects, I have focused on Mandarin. There have been several comprehensive studies of Mandarin classifiers that have provided comparative analyses of numeral classifiers with very similar semantic fields or concerns about the acquisition of numeral classifiers. My sources for Mandarin are Wang's "Dictionary of Chinese Classifiers" (1989), Erbaugh (1986) and Chao (1968). The Thai data are drawn from Carpenter's (1987) Thai numeral classifier acquisition research. The present study refers to Carpenter's core Thai classifier list, which incorporates 40 commonly used classifiers from adult and child production data. As supporting data, I also refer to Haas (1942), Jaturongkachoke (1995) as well as to Lanyon-Orgill (1955), who is cited in Goral (1978). Of these sources, Lanyon-OrgilPs data are the most extensive but pose difficulties because the source is a Thai textbook that lists 241 classifiers, including measure words, repeaters and rarely used classifiers, which is a problem I return to later in my discussion.

3.2. The Japanese numeral classifier system The Japanese numeral classifier system is, among the four classifier systems in this study, the most extensively analyzed lexically, including studies by Downing (1984, 1996), Matsumoto (1985a, 1985b, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1993), Shimojo (1997), Tanihara, Yen and Lee (1990), Denny (1986) and Sanches (1977). Naturally, since I have firsthand

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

23

knowledge of Japanese, my discussion of the Japanese numeral classifier system is more detailed than those of the other three languages in this chapter. The Japanese language has the word order subject + object + verb (SOV). It is a postpositional language, with the position of adjectives being adjective + noun, and is a Type III language according to Greenberg's (1963) typological analysis. As previously discussed, the basic numeral classifier construction of Japanese is noun + numeral + classifier (N-Num-CL), and the four typical constructions appear below as (23ad).14 The head noun can be dropped from the numeral phrase when there is enough context to indicate its content as in (23e), but numerals can never be dropped from numeral phrases as in (23f). In this Japanese contrasts with Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai, in which the numeral "one" is often dropped when there is only one referent as in the Chinese example (24b). (23) Japanese (a) kami ni-mai-o kattta paper two-CL-Acc bought '(I) bought two sheets of paper.' (b) kami-o ni-mai katta paper-Ace two-CL bought '(I) bought two sheets of paper.' (c) ni-mai-no kami-o katta two-CL-Gen paper-Ace bought '(I) bought two sheets of paper.' (d) ni-mai kami-o katta two-CL paper-Ace bought '(I) bought two sheets of paper.' (e) ni-mai katta two CL bought Ί bought two (sheets of paper).' (f) *kami-o -mai katta paper-Ace CL bought (24) Chinese (a) mai yi ben shu buy one CL book Ί (will) buy a book.'

24

Chapter I: Introduction

(b) mai ben shu buy CL book Ί (will) buy a book.' Also, in Vietnamese and Thai, classifiers may be combined with adjectives or demonstratives, and in Chinese, classifiers can be used with demonstratives as in (25b), but this does not occur in Japanese as in (26b). (25) Chinese (a) zhei qiche hen this car very 'This car is very (b) zhei Hang qiche this CL car 'This car is very

gui expensive expensive.' hen gui very expensive expensive.'

(26)Japanese (a) kono kuruma \va totemo takai this car Subj very expensive 'This car is very expensive.' (b) *kono dai kuruma \va totemo takai this CL car Subj very expensive 'This car is very expensive.' In the work of Downing (1984, 1996), a comprehensive analysis of Japanese numeral classifiers is provided which offers a solid introduction to the semantic system of the classifiers. Matsumoto (1991, 1993) analyzes the nature of the semantic categories and the organization of numeral classifiers within the framework of prototype semantics. In particular, Matsumoto pays special attention to the structure of what he calls nonconfigurational classifiers (classifiers defined by referents' functional or structural properties), the category that generally the crosslinguistic studies do not discuss in depth because of its language-specific and idiosyncratic nature.

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

25

Table 1.3. Summary of Downing's (I984, 1996) analysis 1) Animacy -Human -Animal 2) Concrete inanimate -Quality-based -Kind-based 3) Abstract -Abstract -Abstract + Concrete inanimate

Downing (see Table 1.3) categorizes classifiers into three groups based on the nature of the referents associated with the classifiers: animate referents, abstract referents and concrete inanimate referents, in contrast to Adams and Conklin (1973), who describe the animate vs. inanimate distinction as paramount in descriptions of classifier systems. Downing also states that in an adult system "animate referents, with very rare exceptions, are always referred to with one of the limited number of animate classifiers, never with the default classifier -tsu or any of the other members of the system." In addition, within the animate referents, human and non-human are completely differentiated and never overlap. Also, the Japanese classifier system includes very few numeral classifiers denoting abstract entities such as -ken, 'incident' and -toori 'method. 1 In contrast, there are many classifiers to count items with both abstract and concrete manifestations such as -kyoku, 'pieces of music' and -ku, 'haiku.' 15 Here, I wish to interject a minor criticism of Downing's analysis, which is that she categorizes as true classifiers what are clearly repeaters, such as -kyoku and -ku in examples (27) and (28). Most of the abstract classifiers in Japanese can be analyzed as repeaters; in only a few cases did they originate as repeaters but become usable in the company of other nouns, and thus eligible to be considered fullfledged numeral classifiers. (27) kayookyoku-o san-kyoku utat-ta popular music-Ace. three-CL sing-past '(We) sang three popular songs.'

26

Chapter I : Introduction

(28) kyoo-wa haiku-o ik-ku hinette-mi-ta today-Top. Haiku-Acc. one-CL work out-try-Past 'Today (I) tried working out a haiku poem.' Even though there are a relatively small number of strictly abstract classifiers available, -tsu (a default inanimate classifier) is preferred in usage for abstract nouns. Japanese shares this property with many languages whose abstract classifiers are limited in number. The paucity and instability of abstract classifiers is due to the fact that classifiers are a semantic unit which is most useful with respect to concrete and perceptible individual entities. Therefore, classifiers for abstract referents are underused compared to both animate and inanimate concrete referents (Downing 1984, 1996). Like abstract classifiers, classifiers for concrete inanimate referents also may be replaced by -tsu, but they have a much more complete coverage of referents. Downing, in fact, divides them into two sub-groups: quality-based classifiers such as -hon for 'long, slender objects' and -ren for 'strung-together objects,' and kind-based classifiers such as -ki for 'airplane' and -ken for 'building. 1 Her kind-based classifiers are very similar to Adams and Conklin's function-based classifiers, and her quality-based category overlaps with Adams and Conklin's shape-based classifiers but covers a broader semantic field. For example, one of Downing's quality-based classifiers, -hon, can be analyzed as a one-dimensional shape-based classifier for long, slender objects, but a classifier such as -ren could be a problematic case for Adams and Conklin's analysis. It is used to count a string of items such as dried fish or vegetables strung together by a rope, or the beads of a rosary. The objects are strung together in a one-dimensional form, but some items are further formed into a ring-shape like a rosary, thus at a cursory glance, it seems that -ren belongs to a shape category with "long" being a primary parameter, but there is no secondary parameter to describe the structure of objects being strung together or being formed into a ring. Although it is somewhat unclear, Downing's rationale for her two subclasses of inanimate concrete classifiers appears to be that qualitybased classifiers are used for categories containing extremely different referent types which all share at least one particular property, while kind-based classifiers denote categories whose members share a number of properties. In any case, these criteria are not based on the inherent semantic properties of referents, but rather on the function or the semantic load of classifiers. Thus, Downing categorizes classifiers in two

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

27

ways, one based on referent types and the other based on classifier types, an approach which differs from those of Adams and Conklin (1973) or Allan (1977). This difference in approach contributes to the difficulty of forming a taxonomical structure for classifier systems, as none of the systems of kind and quality classifiers stand alone; they complement each other. Matsumoto (1991, 1993) (see Table 1.4) investigates 26 Japanese numeral classifiers within the framework of prototype semantics (although Matsumoto's basic categorization of classifiers turns out to be very similar to the other studies I have described so far). As a purely methodological point, essentially, Matsumoto groups the classifiers into a trichotomy of human/animal/inanimate with inanimate classifiers being subcategorized into three types: abstract, configurational and nonconfigurational classifiers. Matsumoto places the inanimate default classifier -tsu and other abstract classifiers into one category, a categorization that corresponds to Downing's abstract referents. The configurational classifiers are completely equivalent to Adams and Conklin's shape-based classifiers; his nonconfigurational classifiers correspond to their function-based classifiers, but Matsumoto defines the category based explicitly on the function and structure of the referents. In order to select a classifier, Matsumoto claims, a priority order comes into play when more than one classifier is potentially usable, or in other words, more informative classifiers are chosen prior to less informative ones. Table 1.4. Summary of Matsumoto's (1993) analysis 1) Human 2) Animal 3) Inanimate -Abstract -Configurational -Non-configurational

In describing how these categories are organized in the Japanese classifier system, earlier studies (Sanches 1977, Denny 1979) used a taxonomic hierarchical model. From a conceptual point of view, Sanches explains that the taxonomic hierarchy can capture marked and unmarked relations between classifiers at different levels, for example, the

28

Chapter I: Introduction

unmarked classifiers at the higher nodes in the structure were more important and stable classifiers. Downing and Matsumoto represent a different approach to the matter of hierarchy, for they argue that a taxonomy is an inappropriate device you represent in the lexical field of numeral classifiers, because superordinancy relations are delimited in number with the classifier system. Moreover, the classifier system has internally heterogeneous categories, in which a single referent can be classified by more than one classifier. For instance, a sword can be classified by the shape-based quality classifier -hon for long, slender objects, the kind classifier -furi for sword, and the function-based quality classifier -ten for a work of art (Downing 1984, 1996). Also, the well-known example of the classifier -hon—whose referents extend to less obviously one-dimensional items such as telephone calls, letters, movies, TV programs, medical injections and home runs in baseball16—shows the internal complexity of classifier categories due to metaphorical and metonymical usages. Lakoffs (1987) explanation of this is invoked as a category-chaining effect, where the central image of objects for the classifier -hon such as "long, thin, cylindrical objects" extend their boundary to a "trajectory" image of the referents like telephone calls or baseball home-runs. Also, semantic extensions are conceptually coherent with the "image-schema" of the speakers of the language (Lakoff 1987; Inoue 1993a, 1993b).17 Although Matsumoto nominally accepts a hierarchically organized structure, such as "the animacy distinction of human/nonhuman animate/inanimate, and the presence of shape categories in the inanimate domain," he stresses that such a model cannot adequately interpret the global system because it would not be able to satisfactorily explain the nonconfigurational classifiers, which comprise the majority of Japanese classifiers. The nonconfigurational classifiers (and the classifier system as a whole) form a relatively miscellaneous and loose set. The classifier system has the whole set of diverse entities in the world as its referential domain. Almost all classifier systems classify such diverse entities by using animacy and shape categories as a condition of classifiers. Since all concrete entities can be classified in terms of these properties, it is quite natural that these properties are universal aspects of classifier systems. If a classifier system is composed only of these conditions, then the system would be defined more or less successfully in terms of a small number of conditions. . . Nonconfigurational properties . . . are very diverse among different entities in the world, and therefore the semantic categories of such classifiers are also very

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

29

idiosyncratic. Therefore, it is not possible to find a small set of feature oppositions or a taxonomy structure among the nonconfigurational classifiers, let alone in the classifier system as a whole. (Matsumoto 1993: 697)

Thus, Matsumoto as well as others (Carpenter 1987; Downing 1984, 1996; Tanihara, Yen and Lee 1990) resort to prototype analysis in order to capture and convey the internal heterogeneity and plastic boundaries of classifier categories, where the degree of acceptance of a referent to a classifier depends on how many prototypical conditions the referent can satisfy. Resorting to prototypes is for these researchers an attempt to describe linguistic reality as explicitly as possible, but even this approach is not free of problems; indeed Matsumoto (1991) acknowledges that it can be very difficult to demarcate acceptable referents from unacceptable ones. Moreover, it is not the case that prototype phenomena can be found in every type of category (D'Andrade 1989). I have no disagreement with the prototype view. It obviously explains the phenomena of typicality represented by a classifier and fuzzy categories created by heterogeneous referents. Indeed, it can explain hierarchical structure and basic level categories because the first studies of this sort came from Rosch as part of her prototype theory of concepts (see Rosch and Mervis 1975). My criticism is that both Matsumoto and Downing place too much emphasis on the heterogeneity of the classifier system at the expense of the whole picture, with the -gestalt- of the lexical field of the classifier system being ignored. A complete model of how the numeral classifier system works must account for two seemingly incompatible elements: cognition-based universal features and culture-based idiosyncratic features. The culture-based idiosyncratic features tend to centralize in the categories defined by referents' function or abstract notions, which are influenced by culturespecific norms. Seen in this way, such categories are difficult to analyze, devoid as they are of a neatly organized structure (Adams and Conklin 1973, Yamamoto 2000). Conversely, other categories such as human, animal and shape have a relatively organized structure, with the periphery of these categories developing a crucial language-specificity. For example, some languages like Acehnese in Western Austronesian have a human category that holds only one general classifier, while other languages like Vietnamese, Thai and Korean have, in addition to a general classifier, a more elaborated system with several specific classifiers defined by degrees of social rank, occupation or gender. Therefore, I de-

30

Chapter 1: Introduction

scribe the classifier system as a system with a basic organized structure inter-twined with language-specific idiosyncrasies. The structure cannot be mapped out in a single-layered analysis nor will it fit into a strict taxonomic structure used in true scientific taxonomies where the taxonomic relation is always mutually exclusive; nonetheless a taxonomic hierarchical structure is a useful tool, if only to project how different categories relate in the classifier system. As some researchers (Carpenter 1987, Bisang 1999, Yamamoto 2000) pointed out, one of the factors making it so challenging to construct an organized structure for the classifier system is the number of studies that include measure words and repeaters as true numeral classifiers. If one looks closely at Downing's inventory of 74 Japanese numeral classifiers (27 in the core inventory and 47 in the extended inventory), 20 from the core inventory and only half of the extended inventory can be identified as true numeral classifiers based on the criteria set forth in Section 1. Keeping this in mind, constructing an organized structure may not be as challenging as it has often been considered. Indeed, Bisang (1999) found a similar result in studies of Thai (Emeneau 1951, McFarland 1944) and drew the conclusion that true classifiers constitute a fairly small set, with their semantic criteria converging into a system of considerable cross-linguistic similarity and uniformity which lends itself to hierarchical description. Another argument to support the importance of hierarchical structure is the existence of categories that do have relatively organized structures. Although the majority of Japanese numeral classifiers, as Matsumoto (1991, 1993) points out, belong to the non-configurational category, classifiers that are stable and frequently used in mundane life belong to cognitive-based categories which can form an organized structure. The high frequency classifiers based on Downing's (1996) distribution data in Tables 1.5 and 1.6 are the human classifiers -nin and -mei, the animal classifier -hiki, the shape-based classifiers -hon and -mai and the default inanimate classifier -tsu. Certainly, we need to exercise caution in interpreting Downing's data because a large number of her samples are from written texts, which represent more careful and formal and the use of specific classifiers naturally increases. Moreover, since the use of classifiers is highly context and topic dependent (if for instance the conversation topic concerns animals, the use of animal classifiers naturally increases), the data might be skewed. Given all these factors,

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

31

however there is a sizeable gap between high frequency classifiers and the rest, with the majority of them having only a 1% frequency of use. Table 1.5. Top five classifiers from Downing's (1996) "Frequency Distribution of Classifiers Included in the 500 Form Sample" RANK FORM REFERENT CLASS 1.

-nin/-ri

people

WRITTEN

SPOKEN

TOTAL

113 (45%)

88 (35%)

201 (40%)

63 (25%)

115 (23%)

2. -tsu

inanimates

52 (21%)

3. -hiki

animals

13

(5%)

19

(8%)

32

(6%)

4. -hon

long, slender objects

18

(7%)

13

(5%)

31

(6%)

flat, thin objects

14

(6%)

17

(7%)

31

(6%)

-mai

Table 1.6. Top five classifiers from Downing's (1996) "Frequency Distribution of Forms Listed in Studies on the Vocabulary of Modern Newspapers" RANK FORM

REFERENT CLASS

% OF CLASSIFIER USE

1.

-nin

people

34%

2.

-tsu

inanimates

17%

3.

-mei

people (honorific)

11%

4.

-hon

long, slender objects

4%

-mai

flat, thin objects

4%

Matsumoto (1993) claims that the classifier system is a pragmatic system because "the choice of classifier is partially governed by general pragmatic principles when the organization of the system potentially allows more than one classifier to be used." This is illustrated in Downing's example of a sword that I brought up earlier as well as Becker's

32

Chapter 1: Introduction

(1975) famous Burmese example of a river,18 which, because of the wide array of contexts reflected by various classifiers, led Becker to consider numeral classifiers as a metaphorical system. Despite these accounts, it does not mean that these usages are without any constraints. After all, in Japanese there is no example of classifying a tall, slim person with the classifier -hon. Simply put, multiple classifications are based on some inherent features in focus that are constrained by criteria; a sword can be seen as a one-dimensional object, a tool, or a piece of art depending on a given context. Therefore, the categories represented by each classifier are very distinct from context to context. Extended metaphorical uses of classifiers such as using -hon (for long, slender objects) for counting telephone calls, TV programs or home runs in a baseball game are difficult to schematize in a neat, organized structure because there is such a wide disjunction between the original and metaphorical usages. In some cases, like the Thai animal classifier tua, whose usage extends to clothes and furniture pieces like tables, a diachronic analysis is required to decipher such a diversity of usage. Indeed, the metaphorical extension of classifiers is extremely culture-specific, so much so that children themselves rarely acquire the extension without actual exposure to the target culture (Inoue 2000). But a cautionary note is required here, for it is difficult to determine where to draw a definitive line between an original use of a classifier and a metaphorical extension. I personally believe that metaphorical usages should be accounted for individually, due to the fact that they are often isolated cases. Given this isolation, one might of course argue that such extended uses are in an area where prototype analysis can be most effective in describing the degree of acceptability of various features. 19 Comparing across the languages in our study, we find that superordinate relations exist in numeral classifier systems, but in a much less rigid and restrictive manner than in a true scientific taxonomy. Although in adult usage there is a preference to use more specific rather than default classifiers, default classifiers nevertheless often result from speakers' natural tendency to use a less specific choice when an appropriate classifier is difficult to determine. Thus, despite the preference for specific classifiers, specific classifiers are replaced with general classifiers very frequently in Japanese colloquial speech, a phenomenon that is observed in other languages (e.g. Chinese, Thai) as well.20

Comparative lexical semantic analysis inanimate f-tsuj

(animate) human f-HJ

33

animal (-hiki)21

concrete obj.

abstract obj

22

(-ko) formal f-mei] respect [-kata]

small large birds ^^-— insects [-too] f-wa] shape specific [-hiki]23 ^^^T^-^ ID 2D 3D 4 [-honf f-maij [-ko]

functional ^^T^^ machines (more els.) [-dai]

thin/flexible spacially extremely vehicle f-sujij nonsmall / ~\^ independent [-tsubu] water air [-men] ^XX^ f-kij large small f-seki] f-soo] Figure 1.2. Proposed taxonomic hierarchy for Japanese numeral classifiers Bearing in mind these factors, we can still construct a hierarchical structure for the Japanese classifier system, as shown in Figure 1.2. While it is difficult to achieve an exhaustive taxonomy due to the multifaceted nature of classifier systems, this table attempts to analyze: 1) those classifiers which are frequently used on a daily basis; 2) capture the universally shared and cognitively bound categories, such as animacy vs. inanimacy and shape vs. function; and 3) map the relations between general and more specific classifiers. The designated classifier in each category is placed in [ ], but major categories do not necessarily have specific classifiers. Instead, they are determined based on the semantic features that group classifiers into maximally general categories. Except for abstract classifiers, functional classifiers and some of the more specific shape classifiers, all the commonly used classifiers are included in Figure 1.2. Notably, there is a clear distinction between animate and inanimate categories in Japanese, with animate classifiers being divided into two categories of human and animal, without any classifier overriding the human/animal distinction. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to establish an inanimate/human/animal trichotomy as the primary structure. Within the domain of human classifiers, -ri/-nin25 are

34

Chapter 1: Introduction

generic and two more classifiers, -kata and -mei, may be used under certain pragmatic conditions. 26 There is a formal/informal distinction in human classifiers but an absence of gender distinction (actually, there is no gender distinction anywhere in the Japanese classifier system). Of the animal classifiers, -hiki has the largest semantic field, applicable to insects and other animals smaller than human beings, while -too is for large animals, and -wa is for birds. There is an exceptional usage of -\va for rabbits for culture-specific reasons.27 -Hiki has been evolving into a generic classifier for animals because it can be used to some extent in place of -too and -wa (particularly in colloquial speech), and when various animals are counted together, -hiki is the classifier. For inanimate objects, the default classifier is -tsu,28 which can be used for any inanimate object. Default classifiers are traditionally used under certain conditions, but their use is getting much less restricted in informal colloquial speech. If a more specific classifier is available for a referent, however, that classifier will still generally be used. Inanimate classifiers are categorized into two groups, those for concrete objects and classifiers for abstract objects, while the three-dimensional classifier -ko is now often used as a default classifier for concrete objects (Kawakami 1995; Matsumoto 1985a, 1985b; Shimojo 1997; Zubin and Shimojo 1993). The shape-specific classifiers also have a large semantic field, though their classification violates natural categorization due to the fact that they refer not only to concrete inanimate objects but also to plants, which are usually distinguished from non-living things in folkbiology. In folkbiology, anthropological studies dealing with people's (often in small communities without modern science and technology) everyday knowledge of the biological world, "entities in the world are divided into four ontological categories, that is, humans, other animals, plants, and nonliving things" (Hatano and Inagaki 1999: 321). Note that crosslinguistic classifier research shows that there is no well-founded basis on which to postulate an independent category for plants in any numeral classifier system. In the case of Japanese numeral classifiers, there are a few plant-related classifiers such as -kabu for roots or rooted plants, -eda for branches, -hira for petals and -rin for flowers. Both -kabu and -eda originated from repeaters because lexically they mean 'root' and 'branch' respectively. -Hira can be considered a shape classifier for it is used for thin, diffuse, insubstantial and fragmentary entities such as a snow flake floating in the air or a whiff of a passing cloud in the sky as

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

35

well as petals. -Rin, whose lexical meaning is wheel and wheel-shaped objects, is now used as a classifier for flowers (either including or excluding stems). The first three classifiers are Japanese classifiers, so the usage is restricted up to the number ten (see Endnote 25 for more details). But actually, all these classifiers are typically used with numbers one or two in order to emphasize the preciousness of the referents, and to coin larger numbers, shape-specific classifiers such as -hon and -mai are used. Now, in reference to Japanese, there are three shape-based classifiers: one-dimensional (ID) for long, slender objects; two-dimensional (2D) for thin, flat objects; and three-dimensional (3D) for round or cubical shaped objects. Here, I use the notion of extended dimensionality to describe shape because it applies to odd-shaped objects more closely than the traditional descriptors long, flat and round. Each shape category is further subcategorized according to the material of an object or how the object is placed (spatially-independent or not). The functional category, which defines referents by their function or structure,29 is the most complex and difficult to summarize, due to its idiosyncratic specificity, while at the same time, the functional subcategory for mechanical objects is one that can be partially delineated. The classifier for mechanical objects, -dai, can be placed at the upper node, and its prototypical conditions as outlined by Matsumoto (1991, 1993) encompass: 1) machines attached to a solid surface, movable ones and ones capable of conveying objects, all of which must 2) have a functional surface, but 3) not be too small in size. To this end, -dai is used to count cars, bicycles, computers, TVs, stereos, and in marginal cases, furniture, e.g. beds or desks, and escalators. The sub-types of mechanical classifiers include the classifier -ki for airplanes and two classifiers, -500 and -seki for ships and water craft, which can be further subcategorized by size and place of operation (on or under water). These three classifiers can all be replaced with -dai, but only in a situation in which those vehicles are placed on land. Another classifier, in the functional category, is -choo for tools with handles, such as saws or kitchen knives. 30 The classifiers for houses, -ken and -mune, are also interesting cases since -ken is used when the function of the building is the focus, such as when a house is designated as a combination residence and store, while mune is used to refer to the building as a structured object. Of course, there are many more function-based classifiers, but I will limit the dis-

36

Chapter I: Introduction

cussion to these cases (see Matsumoto 1991, 1993 for an analysis of functional classifiers). Finally, the abstract classifiers, as both Matsumoto and Downing argue, have very limited use in Japanese, since most are repeaters or originate from repeaters. Overall, these classifiers are created out of syntactic necessity and very often are replaced by the default classifier -tsu. The three most commonly used classifiers for abstract referents are -tsu (inanimate default CL), -ken (incidents) and -toori (methods).

3.3. The Vietnamese numeral classifier system The basic word order of Vietnamese is subject + verb + object (SVO). Vietnamese is a prepositional language; the dominant position of adjectives is following the noun, but adjectives borrowed from Chinese maintain their Chinese syntactic position before the noun. Numeral classifier phrases have the typical word order numeral + classifier + noun (NumCL-N). When adjectives and determiners are added, the NP-internal order is as follows: (Num) + CL + (N) + (Adj) + (Det)

More than one element can be omitted from the above construction but the CL cannot function by itself, so it has to be combined with at least one of the other elements. The other syntactic characteristics related to numeral classifiers in Vietnamese are that the language does not have repeaters but has verbal classifiers which appear in the construction verb + numeral + classifier + (verb). The following Vietnamese example is taken from Goral (1978). (29)

nhay hai cai jump two CL 'make two jumps'

It may be possible to consider these verbs as abstract nouns representative of action, with the classifiers themselves having the function of nominalizing verbs, but in any case, this construction requires an entirely new syntactic analysis which would of course exceed the objectives of this study.

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

37

We now turn fully to Goral (1978), who made clear claims that the Vietnamese classifier system consists of two major distinct categories of abstract and concrete. First we must consider Coral's definition with respect to the concept of the abstract, a category which for him means being incorporeal or focusing on some subjective aspect of an object, and which also includes the verbal classifiers, discussed briefly above. In Coral's analysis, concrete classifiers are subcategorized into animate and inanimate, with the inanimate category being further broken down into shape, quantity and function classifiers. But as Goral argues, in contrast to Adams and Conklin's (1973) models, shape is not a primary feature in Vietnamese. Shape is nonetheless an important feature, and the simple trichotomy hypothesis represented in Table 1.7 cannot exhaustively characterize the shape-based classifiers, because of the large number of complex and idiosyncratic shape-specific classifiers in Vietnamese. Table 1.7. Summary of Coral's analysis 1) Concrete -Animate -Inanimate -Shape -Quantity -Function 2) Abstract

The analytical discrepancy between Goral (1978) and Adams and Conklin (1973) derives from the differences in their respective definitions of numeral classifiers. Goral defines any morpheme which fits into the slots Num+ +N as a classifier, but a close examination of GoraFs analysis reveals that he analyzes entities like am 'teapot, kettle' and bat 'eating bowl' as a "CL for potful of things" and "CL for bowlful of things" respectively, while Adams and Conklin analyze them as temporary measures31 and eliminate them entirely from their inventory of classifiers. Another questionable example in Coral's study is dam, which is a CL for crowds, clouds and fields. The representative examples given of the usage of this classifier in Nguyen's (1966) Vietnamese-English dictionary are a group of gamblers, a wedding procession, a funeral, a parade and a crowd of demonstrators. Goral analyzes this classifier as a special shape-based classifier which does not belong to

38

Chapter I: Introduction

the trichotomy (ID, 2D and 3D); he instead classifies it using other criteria, such as an organized mass. This is a problematic analysis. A better alternative analysis would have been to analyze dam as either a function-based classifier or a temporary measure word and to exclude it from shape-based classifiers. Coral's study includes several similarly questionable cases. If we exclude the cases that match Adams' (1989) temporary amounts and unspecified amounts32 from Coral's inventory, most of the shape-based classifiers in the Vietnamese data fit into the trichotomy. It also makes sense to exclude these expressions from the classifiers, for they do not treat referents as discrete objects but as an undifferentiated mass, in a way that is also common in non-classifier languages such as English. Since measure words share these two characteristics, I consider such expressions members of the measure word category, and consequently, ipso facto, not true numeral classifiers. The Vietnamese shape-based classifiers are much more complex than their Japanese counterparts, due to the fact that the primary ID, 2D and 3D classifiers are very diversely extended (see Figure 1.3) and are combined with more than one secondary feature. The secondary features include function, material, size, flexibility and shape regularity, which are slightly different from those listed by Adams and Conklin (1973). More importantly, in many cases the association between referent and classifier is conventional and hard to predict. For example la, which originally meant "leaf as a noun, is a classifier for playing cards, flags, applications, letters, sails, livers and lungs. We can categorize this classifier as a two-dimensional shape classifier, but have difficulty in generalizing its application to internal organs. Another example is the case of con, again taken from Coral (1978). Con is the classifier for animals and certain inanimate objects. When presented with the numeral frame One chicken,' all of Coral's informants responded with the classifier con. When asked about con dao, which means "a knife," they also agreed that con was the correct classifier for dao, but qualified the statement by explaining that this kind of combination had to be memorized. Coral states that his informants "were aware of the general class of animals, and could think of no principle by which dao could be included in this class." The co-existence of a well-defined class and a conventional arbitrary class is very characteristic of numeral classifiers, as we have seen, and I shall discuss specific disjunctions like this more in detail in my analysis of Thai numeral classifiers.

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

39

The Vietnamese language also has highly diversified human classifiers. Vietnamese has a generic classifier, nguoi, for adult human beings, generally "used before kinship terms and other nouns giving an idea of the occupation of the person" (Nguyen, 1957). It also has many more human classifiers of limited denotation based on social status (superior/inferior), age, sex, race, kinship, occupation and personal characteristics (e.g. dishonesty, beauty), so that, out of 140 numeral classifiers in Coral's data, twenty-seven were human. Though this finding is indicative of the importance of social and cultural values in human classifiers in Vietnamese, it is also puzzling, since it remains to be investigated how many of them are in frequent daily use. Out of this extensive inventory of human classifiers in day-to-day usage, how many have mutated into archaic lexical items? In stark contrast to this lexically rich and abundant human category, there is one lone animal classifier in Vietnamese, con. Inanimate [cai]

(Animate) Human [nguoi]

Animal [con]

Concrete

Function ^^"""'^

Shape social status age sex race kinship occupation character etc.

ID

2D

Abstract

3D

function material flexibility shape regularity size etc.

emotion climatesex building institution transportation action written material etc. ect.

Figure 1.3. Proposed structure for Vietnamese numeral classifiers

Figure 1.3 is my proposed structure for the Vietnamese numeral classifier system. The basic structure is, just like the Japanese system, a trichotomy of inanimate/human/animal. There is a generic inanimate classifier, cai, whose usage extends to small insects, like ants and bees,

40

Chapter 1: Introduction

and also to unitary actions such as single strokes or blows, but unlike Japanese, cai cannot be used to cover the broad conceptual spectrum of the abstract category. Although human classifiers are extensively developed, con is the only animal classifier in Vietnamese, and in extended usage can also be used with certain inanimate objects, like knives, numbers, roads and rivers. As in Japanese, Vietnamese has no specific, generic classifier for plants, which are instead classified by shape-based classifiers. Exceptions to this generalization are two classifiers for flowers and one classifier for the roots of trees. Note, however, that though a substantial number of specific classifiers could be placed under the lowest nodes, I listed only the collective features of those classifiers. Further analysis in this area would require a greater depth of knowledge in the Vietnamese language (both diachronic and synchronic) and its culture.

3.4. The Chinese numeral classifier system Chinese has the word order subject + verb + object (SVO). It is a predominately postpositional language. The position of the adjective is prenominal (adjective + noun), while classifiers are obligatory with numerals and demonstratives. The basic numeral classifier phrase construction is Det + Num + CL + N; Det can be omitted when unnecessary, and Num can be omitted when counting only a single item. (30)

Det + N u m + CL + N nei son ben shu those three CL books 'those three books'

(31)

Det + CL+ N nei ben shu that CL book 'that book'

(32)

N u m + CL+ N san ben shu three CL books 'three books'

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

41

There are about 140 numeral classifiers in modern Chinese (Lu, 1981 cited by Wang, 1994), but Chao (1968) defined fifty items as true classifiers out of which Erbaugh (1986) selected twenty-two as core classifiers based on adult and child production. The present study refers to Erbaugh's core classifier list. A proposed structure for the Chinese numeral classifier system is shown in Figure 1.4. Both Chao and Erbaugh observe that Chinese has the general classifier ge which is applicable to any individual noun and can replace any classifier. Evidence suggests that the classifier ge has a lexical lineage that dates back to classical Chinese antiquity, being one of the oldest classifiers in Chinese; and, according to one theory (Wang 1994), originated in the Proto-Chinese measure word kai for an individual item as opposed to a collection of items, which was recorded in the oracular inscriptions of divination in the Shang-Zhou period (16 th c. 256 B.C.). Later, in the Pre-Qin period (before 221 B.C.) another general classifier frjie emerged and made an orthographic and phonological transformation to φ ge. The other classifier flu ge, which meant "part of a whole, particality," and M ge, a specific classifier for bamboo, appeared later during the Han period (206 BC- 220 A.D.). Since these three classifiers were homophonic and semantically close and related, they later merged and developed into the general classifier φ ge in modern Chinese. Although ge is categorized as a general classifier, it has features like [-long, -flat, +global] (Loke 1992). Therefore, it can be considered as a specific classifier for three-dimensional objects (similar to the Japanese -ko, which is the Sino-Japanese loan form of it) in contemporary Chinese. Based on this heritage and history, Erbaugh argued that there was no animate/inanimate or human/non-human distinction in Chinese. But to clarify this account, I asked three Chinese informants whether or not ge was interchangeable with all the other classifiers. All three informants accepted applying ge to inanimate objects and abstract concepts, even though they acknowledged that there were questionable cases for its application, but they did not find ge applicable to animals. The conclusion reached by these native informants casts some doubt on Erbaugh's claim, but certainly the human category in Chinese is difficult to classify as animate compared to the other three languages, because its generic classifier is identical to the inanimate generic classifier ge. Though there is one human-only classifier we/33 and several animal-only classifiers in Chinese, only ge blurs the animate/inanimate distinction in

42

Chapter I: Introduction

this way. In my proposed structure, ge is placed at the top node as a default generic classifier.

General

Inanimate

Animate Animal

Human 3

small [zhi]

honorific

cattle [tou] horse [pi]

[wei]

fish [tiao]36

Concrete

Abstract Function

Shape

e.g. verse

ID x/\x

2D

[zhang]

flexible rigid | [tiao] [gen] small

3D

[ge]37

e.g

clothing \jian]3"

^XX^ books [ben] lump small rooms \jian]

incident \jian] events

| [pian] [kuai] [ke] movable w. [tiao] cylindrical | handle [ba] [zhi] extremely land vehicle [Hang] small (OD) w. frame-like construction

[/ι]

[/ία]

Figure 1.4. Proposed structure for Chinese numeral classifiers I find Chinese animal classifiers to be as diversified in Japanese; Chinese possesses four animal classifiers: shi, tou, pi and tiao. Zhi is a classifier for small animals and creatures, such as cats, dogs, birds and insects, and includes animals up to the size of tigers. Pi is a specialized classifier for horses or donkeys, and tou, a classifier for larger animals and livestock like cows, sheep or goats. Although I classified tiao as an animal classifier, it was originally a shape-based classifier, applicable to onedimensional, slender, flexible objects, and later used metaphorically as a classifier for long-shaped creatures like snakes, fish and worms. Its usage has further extended to animals like dogs and sheep, but it remains inapplicable to living creatures whose shapes are rounded, such as birds or insects.

Comparative lexical semantic analysis

43

Several diachronic studies (Liu 1965; Erbaugh 1986; Wang 1994) explain this semantic extension of categorical membership. Tiao, for example, has an evolutionary sequence that merits attention. It first appeared as a noun meaning 'small branch' in early literature, specifically in the oracle bone writings39 in the Shang period (16 th -l l t h c B.C.). Subsequently, in the Weijin period (220-420 A.D.), when Chinese classifiers developed rapidly and spread expansively from an initial inventory of 50 in the Han period (206 B.C.) to a later repertoire of about 110, tiao first gained popular usage, a usage still prevalent today in modern Chinese. Initially though, tiao was used as a classifier for long, concrete objects like a string, a belt, a garment, and a branch, basically quotidian items of daily life that at times demand some type of hand manipulation. Later, by the Tang period (600-900 A.D.) it was established as a classifier for long, one-dimensional objects, but then its referentiality expanded to incorporate creatures like snakes. With the advent of the Song period (960-1127 A.D.), tiao's categorical membership was extended from the small everyday objects mentioned, to items with onedimensional extension in nature, to natural and topographical scenery, rivers, mountain ranges, roads, streets and also shade. Also, its visualperceptual, one-dimensional feature was metaphorically extended to events and affairs, which were recorded via texts written downward along a vertical axis in books, then further extended to abstract nouns related to events and affairs. In tiao's trajectory of transmutation and development, we can see the Lakofian notion of the 'chaining effect,' in which tiao extended its category boundary from one-dimensional concrete objects to abstract concepts or animals. Consequently, in order to complete my structure for Chinese numeral classifiers, I assigned tiao to animal, configurational and abstract categories. My trifurcated classification of tiao into three categories is a tentative, ad-hoc solution for what amounts to a disjunctive classification. As already noted, Chinese has only two classifiers for human beings, the general classifier ge and the more polite and honorific classifier wei. Chinese also has two classifiers for plants, ke and duo, with ke applying to trees and grass and duo to flowers excluding stems. To count tree parts such as branches, leaves or whole flowers including the stem, requires the use of a shape classifier. Chinese has three categories of shape-based classifiers, one-,40 twoand three-dimensional, and each category is subcategorized more specifically based on sub-features such as size and flexibility. With respect to

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Chapter I: Introduction

functional classifiers, ba is a classifier for objects with handles, such as knives, scissors, umbrellas and chairs (ancient Chinese chairs had handles). Some researchers have analyzed this classifier as a shape-based classifier, but handles have more to do with function than with the shape of an object, suggesting that to categorize ba as a function-based classifier would be more appropriate. A two-dimensional shape classifier for clothing, jian, is used for sweaters, shirts and jackets, while for skirts and pants, the one-dimensional shape classifier, tiao is used. Jian is also an abstract classifier for incidents and business matters, butjian's anomalous usage points to a difficulty with potentially revealing implications: There is no clue synchronically as to why one classifier should be applicable to both concrete objects like clothes and abstract incidents. A diachronic study might provide insight into the nature of this relationship.

3.5. The Thai numeral classifier system Thai has the basic word order subject + verb + object (SVO). Thai is a prepositional language adhering to the order noun + adjective for the adjective phrase. A classifier is obligatory when a noun is accompanied by a numeral, and the usual numeral classifier phrase construction is N + Num + CL.

(33)

V + N + Num + CL mi: ηβ/ce n&/