Classifier (linguistics)
Encyclopedia
A classifier, in linguistics
, sometimes called a measure word
, is a word
or morpheme
used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun
according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified (i.e., when it appears with a numeral or a demonstrative
). Classifiers are not used in English (for instance, "people" is a countable noun, and to say "three people" no extra word needs to be added), but are common in many East Asian languages
(where the equivalent of "three people" is often "three classifier people").
Classifier systems should not be confused with noun class
es, which often categorize nouns in ways independent from meaning, such as according to morphology
.
(not the noun itself) and is commonly used when counting. Noun classifiers are not grammatical
but lexical item
s, and a language may have hundreds of noun classifiers. For instance, in Mandarin Chinese
, the general noun classifier for humans is ge (個), and it is used for counting humans, whatever they are called:
And for trees, it would be:3-ke shu (三棵樹) lit. "3 tree-classifier of tree" — 3 trees;
for birds: 3-zhi niao (三隻鳥) lit. "3 bird-classifier of bird" — 3 birds;
for rivers: 3-tiao he (三條河) lit. "3 long-wavy-shape of river" — 3 rivers;
As this example shows, the noun classifier agrees
with the referent of a noun, not with the noun itself. Since noun classifiers are words, not grammatical functions, it is not uncommon to import them from other languages. They are very much like measure word
s in this respect; when counting cups of coffee, it does not matter what the type of cup is, or the brand of the coffee. The referent can also be omitted in both systems when answering a question about quantity:
Languages with noun classifiers include Chinese
(see Chinese classifier), Persian
, Japanese
, Korean
, Southeast Asian languages, Austronesian languages
, and Mayan languages
. Classifiers are a very typical feature of sign language
s.
A less typical example of classifiers is explained at Southern Athabaskan grammar: Classificatory verbs.
Note that the preceding measure words are singular
in form. If they were plural
, the first two phrases would have different meanings.
In English, one must say, "two sheets of paper" rather than "two papers". In Korean, the term jang (장) is used to count sheets, or paper-like material in general. So "ten bus tickets" would be beoseu pyo yeol jang (버스 표 열 장), literally, "bus ticket ten 'sheets'".
There are two systems of numerals in Korean: native Korean and Sino-Korean. Native Korean numerals are used with most counter words. yeol gwa (열 과) would mean "ten lessons" while sip gwa (십 과) would mean "lesson ten". Sino-Korean numerals
are used with many time counters.
, classifiers, in the form of particles, are used when counting or measuring nouns. They immediately follow the numerical quantification. Nouns to which the classifiers refer to can be omitted if the context allows, because many classifiers have implicit meanings.
; a noun without a classifier can be translated as either singular or plural. Classifiers are used when enumerating a count noun:
Classifiers are not used often in Classical Chinese
, and it is not obligatory to use them. In all modern Chinese languages
, however, measure words are obligatory with enumeration of all count nouns; yī rén in modern Chinese is grammatically incorrect. The choice of a classifier for each noun is a matter of grammar, is somewhat arbitrary–though frequently corresponds with a relatively well-defined classification of objects based on physical characteristics–and must be memorized by learners of Chinese. The classifier assigned to a noun often has an imagistic association with that object. Thus, zhāng has table as one of its meanings, and is used for large and thin objects. (Though uncommon, it is even possible to omit the noun if the choice of classifier makes the intended noun obvious–like the Bengali example above.) Not all classifier words derive from nouns. For example, the word bǎ can also be a verb meaning to grab, and is the measure word for objects that have handles.
grammar, classifiers must be used with a number when counting nouns. The appropriate classifier is chosen based on the kind and shape of the noun, and combines with the numeral, sometimes adopting several different forms.
makes use of classifiers. Every noun in this language must have its corresponding classifier when used with a numeral or other quantifier. Most nouns take the generic classifier ţa, although there are many more specific measure words, such as jon, which is only used to count humans. Still, the number of measure words in Bengali is much less than that of Chinese or Japanese. As in Chinese, Bengali nouns are not inflected for number.
Similar to the situation in Chinese, measuring nouns in Bengali without their corresponding measure words (e.g. aţ biŗal instead of aţ-ţa biŗal "eight cats") would typically be considered ungrammatical. However, it is common to omit the classifier when it counts a noun that is not in nominative case
(e.g., aţ biŗaler desh (eight cats-possessive country ), or panc bhUte khelo (five ghosts-instrumental ate)) or when the number is very large (e.g., ek sho lok esechhe ("One hundred people have come.")). Classifiers may also be dropped when the focus of the sentence is not on the actual counting but on a statement of fact (e.g., amar char chhele (I-possessive four boy, I have four sons)). The -ţa suffix comes from /goţa/ 'piece', and is also used as a definite article.
Omitting the noun and preserving the classifier is grammatical and common. For example, Shudhu êk-jon thakbe. (lit. "Only one-MW will remain.") would be understood to mean "Only one person will remain.", since jon can only be used to count humans. The word lok "person" is implied.
, including Chinese
, Japanese
, Korean
, Vietnamese
, Malay
, Burmese
, Thai
, Hmong
, and the Bengali
and Munda languages
just to the west of the East and Southeast Asia linguistic area. Among indigenous languages of the Americas
, classiiers in the Pacific Northwest
, especially among the Tsimshianic languages
, and in many languages of Mesoamerica, including Classic Maya
and most of its modern derivatives. They also occur in some languages of the Amazon Basin (most famously Yagua
) and a very small number of West African languages
.
In contrast, classifiers are entirely absent not only from European languages, but also from many languages of northern Asia (Uralic
, Turkic
, Mongolic
, Tungusic
and mainland Paleosiberian languages
), from Australian Aboriginal languages, and also from the indigenous languages of the southern parts of both North and South America. In Austronesian languages
, classifiers have been acquired as a result of contact with Mon–Khmer languages but the most remote members such as Malagasy
and Hawaiian
have gradually lost them.
The World Atlas of Language Structures
has a global map showing 400 languages and chapter text including geographical discussion:
.
Nevertheless, there is no clearly demarked difference between the two: since classifiers often evolve into class systems, they are two extremes of a continuum.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, sometimes called a measure word
Measure word
In linguistics, measure words are words that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate an amount of some noun. They denote a unit or measurement and are used with nouns that are not countable. For instance, in English, is a mass noun and thus one cannot say *"three muds", but one can say...
, is a word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
or morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun
Count noun
In linguistics, a count noun is a common noun that can be modified by a numeral and that occurs in both singular and plural form, as well as co-occurring with quantificational determiners like every, each, several, etc. A mass noun has none of these properties...
according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified (i.e., when it appears with a numeral or a demonstrative
Demonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
). Classifiers are not used in English (for instance, "people" is a countable noun, and to say "three people" no extra word needs to be added), but are common in many East Asian languages
East Asian languages
East Asian languages describe two notional groupings of languages in East and Southeast Asia:* Languages which have been greatly influenced by Classical Chinese and the Chinese writing system, in particular Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese .* The larger grouping of languages includes the...
(where the equivalent of "three people" is often "three classifier people").
Classifier systems should not be confused with noun class
Noun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es, which often categorize nouns in ways independent from meaning, such as according to morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
.
Definition and examples
In a language with noun classifiers, a noun may or may not be accompanied by a noun classifier, which shows a conceptual classification of the referent of a nounNoun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
(not the noun itself) and is commonly used when counting. Noun classifiers are not grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
but lexical item
Lexical item
A Lexical item is a single word or chain of words that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon . Examples are "cat", "traffic light", "take care of", "by-the-way", and "it's raining cats and dogs"...
s, and a language may have hundreds of noun classifiers. For instance, in Mandarin Chinese
Standard Mandarin
Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
, the general noun classifier for humans is ge (個), and it is used for counting humans, whatever they are called:
- 3-ge xuesheng (三個學生) lit. "3 human-classifier of student" — 3 students
And for trees, it would be:3-ke shu (三棵樹) lit. "3 tree-classifier of tree" — 3 trees;
for birds: 3-zhi niao (三隻鳥) lit. "3 bird-classifier of bird" — 3 birds;
for rivers: 3-tiao he (三條河) lit. "3 long-wavy-shape of river" — 3 rivers;
As this example shows, the noun classifier agrees
Agreement (linguistics)
In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
with the referent of a noun, not with the noun itself. Since noun classifiers are words, not grammatical functions, it is not uncommon to import them from other languages. They are very much like measure word
Measure word
In linguistics, measure words are words that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate an amount of some noun. They denote a unit or measurement and are used with nouns that are not countable. For instance, in English, is a mass noun and thus one cannot say *"three muds", but one can say...
s in this respect; when counting cups of coffee, it does not matter what the type of cup is, or the brand of the coffee. The referent can also be omitted in both systems when answering a question about quantity:
- Q: duo-shao tong(classifier) shui? (多少桶水?) — How many bucket(measure word) of water?
- A: liang-tong. (兩桶.) — Two buckets.
Languages with noun classifiers include Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
(see Chinese classifier), Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, Southeast Asian languages, Austronesian languages
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
, and Mayan languages
Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
. Classifiers are a very typical feature of sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
s.
A less typical example of classifiers is explained at Southern Athabaskan grammar: Classificatory verbs.
English
English does not use classifiers productively, although a few idiosyncratic nouns do sometimes appear with classifiers:- five head of cattle (said by ranchers)
- ten stem of roses (said by florists)
- three pair of pants (or pairs)
Note that the preceding measure words are singular
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
in form. If they were plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
, the first two phrases would have different meanings.
French
French does not use classifiers productively, although a few idiosyncratic nouns do sometimes appear with classifiers:- Une tête de bétail (same meaning as a head of cattle in English)
- Une paire de lunettes/jumelles/gants/chaussures/baguettes (a pair of glasses/binoculars/gloves/shoes/chopsticks...)
- Une botte de radis (a stem (literally: boot) of radishes)
- Un pied de roses (a stem (literally: foot; used for trees/berries) of roses)
Korean
Korean uses special counting words to count objects and events.In English, one must say, "two sheets of paper" rather than "two papers". In Korean, the term jang (장) is used to count sheets, or paper-like material in general. So "ten bus tickets" would be beoseu pyo yeol jang (버스 표 열 장), literally, "bus ticket ten 'sheets'".
There are two systems of numerals in Korean: native Korean and Sino-Korean. Native Korean numerals are used with most counter words. yeol gwa (열 과) would mean "ten lessons" while sip gwa (십 과) would mean "lesson ten". Sino-Korean numerals
Korean numerals
The Korean language has two regularly used sets of numerals, a native Korean system and Sino-Korean system.-Construction:For both native and Sino- Korean numerals, the teens are represented by a combination of tens and the ones places...
are used with many time counters.
Burmese
In BurmeseBurmese language
The Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the constitution officially recognizes it as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as...
, classifiers, in the form of particles, are used when counting or measuring nouns. They immediately follow the numerical quantification. Nouns to which the classifiers refer to can be omitted if the context allows, because many classifiers have implicit meanings.
| Burmese | Literal translation | English translation |
|---|---|---|
θù tù n̥ə t͡ʃʰáʊ̃ ʃḭ dè Thu tu hna chaung shi de |
He-chopstick-two-[classifier for long and thin items]-[have-particle indicating present tense]. | He has two chopsticks. |
zəbwé kʰù̃ n̥ə kʰṵ ʃḭ là Zabwe khun-hna khu shi la |
Table-seven-[general classifier for items]-have-[particle indicating question] | Do you have seven tables? |
lù tə ú lu ta u |
one-[classifier for people]-person | one person or a person |
Chinese
In Mandarin, nouns are not declined for singular or plural numberGrammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
; a noun without a classifier can be translated as either singular or plural. Classifiers are used when enumerating a count noun:
| Chinese | Literal translation | Grammatically correct/idiomatic translation |
|---|---|---|
Tā yǒu sān shuāng kuaìzi. |
He have three pair chopstick. | He has three pairs of chopsticks. |
Nǐ yǒu méi yǒu qī zhāng zhuōzi? |
You have-not-have seven [flat-thing classifier] table? | Do you have seven tables? |
yí gè rén |
one [general classifier] person | one person or a person |
Classifiers are not used often in Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...
, and it is not obligatory to use them. In all modern Chinese languages
Varieties of Chinese
Chinese comprises many regional language varieties sometimes grouped together as the Chinese dialects, the primary ones being Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. These are not mutually intelligible, and even many of the regional varieties are themselves composed of a number of...
, however, measure words are obligatory with enumeration of all count nouns; yī rén in modern Chinese is grammatically incorrect. The choice of a classifier for each noun is a matter of grammar, is somewhat arbitrary–though frequently corresponds with a relatively well-defined classification of objects based on physical characteristics–and must be memorized by learners of Chinese. The classifier assigned to a noun often has an imagistic association with that object. Thus, zhāng has table as one of its meanings, and is used for large and thin objects. (Though uncommon, it is even possible to omit the noun if the choice of classifier makes the intended noun obvious–like the Bengali example above.) Not all classifier words derive from nouns. For example, the word bǎ can also be a verb meaning to grab, and is the measure word for objects that have handles.
Japanese
In JapaneseJapanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
grammar, classifiers must be used with a number when counting nouns. The appropriate classifier is chosen based on the kind and shape of the noun, and combines with the numeral, sometimes adopting several different forms.
| Japanese | English, literal | English |
|---|---|---|
| 鉛筆五本 enpitsu go-hon |
pencil five cylindrical-things | five pencils |
| 犬三匹 inu san-biki |
dog three animal-things | three dogs |
| 子供四人 kodomo yo-nin |
child four people-things | four children |
niwatori san-ba |
chicken three bird-things | three chickens |
| ヨット三艘 yotto san-sō |
yacht three boat-things | three yachts |
| 車一台 kuruma ichi-dai |
car one mechanical-thing | one car |
| トランプ二枚 toranpu ni-mai |
playing card two flat-things | two cards |
Bengali
Although not typical for an Indo-European language, BengaliBengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
makes use of classifiers. Every noun in this language must have its corresponding classifier when used with a numeral or other quantifier. Most nouns take the generic classifier ţa, although there are many more specific measure words, such as jon, which is only used to count humans. Still, the number of measure words in Bengali is much less than that of Chinese or Japanese. As in Chinese, Bengali nouns are not inflected for number.
| Bengali | Literal English translation | Normal English translation |
|---|---|---|
| Nôe-ţa ghoŗi | Nine-CL clock | Nine clocks |
| Kôe-ţa balish | How.many-CL pillow | How many pillows |
| Ônek-jon lok | Many-CL person | Many people |
| Char-pañch-jon shikkhôk | Four-five-CL teacher | Four or five teachers |
Similar to the situation in Chinese, measuring nouns in Bengali without their corresponding measure words (e.g. aţ biŗal instead of aţ-ţa biŗal "eight cats") would typically be considered ungrammatical. However, it is common to omit the classifier when it counts a noun that is not in nominative case
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
(e.g., aţ biŗaler desh (eight cats-possessive country ), or panc bhUte khelo (five ghosts-instrumental ate)) or when the number is very large (e.g., ek sho lok esechhe ("One hundred people have come.")). Classifiers may also be dropped when the focus of the sentence is not on the actual counting but on a statement of fact (e.g., amar char chhele (I-possessive four boy, I have four sons)). The -ţa suffix comes from /goţa/ 'piece', and is also used as a definite article.
Omitting the noun and preserving the classifier is grammatical and common. For example, Shudhu êk-jon thakbe. (lit. "Only one-MW will remain.") would be understood to mean "Only one person will remain.", since jon can only be used to count humans. The word lok "person" is implied.
Nepali
Nepali has a system very similar to Bengali's, using -waṭā (-वटा) for objects and "-janā" (-जना) for humans.Global distribution
Classifiers are part of the grammar of most East Asian languagesEast Asian languages
East Asian languages describe two notional groupings of languages in East and Southeast Asia:* Languages which have been greatly influenced by Classical Chinese and the Chinese writing system, in particular Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese .* The larger grouping of languages includes the...
, including Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
, Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, Burmese
Burmese language
The Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the constitution officially recognizes it as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as...
, Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
, Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, and the Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
and Munda languages
Munda languages
-Anderson :Gregory Anderson's 1999 proposal is as follows. Individual languages are highlighted in italics.*North Munda **Korku**Kherwarian***Santhali***Mundari*South Munda **Kharia–Juang***Juang***Kharia...
just to the west of the East and Southeast Asia linguistic area. Among indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
, classiiers in the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
, especially among the Tsimshianic languages
Tsimshianic languages
The Tsimshianic languages are a family of languages spoken in northwestern British Columbia and in southern Alaska on Annette Island and Ketchikan. About 2,170 people of the ethnic Tsimshian population in Canada still speak the Tsimshian languages; about 50 of the 1,300 Tsimshian people living in...
, and in many languages of Mesoamerica, including Classic Maya
Classic Maya language
The Classic Maya language is the oldest historically attested member of the Mayan language family. It is the main language documented in the pre-Columbian inscriptions of the Classic Era Maya civilization.- Relationships :...
and most of its modern derivatives. They also occur in some languages of the Amazon Basin (most famously Yagua
Yagua language
The Yagua language is spoken by the Yagua people, primarily in northeastern Peru. As of 2005, it appears that a few speakers may have migrated northward across the Peruvian-Colombian border near the town of Leticia...
) and a very small number of West African languages
Languages of Africa
There are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...
.
In contrast, classifiers are entirely absent not only from European languages, but also from many languages of northern Asia (Uralic
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
, Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
, Mongolic
Mongolic languages
The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in East-Central Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas plus in Kalmykia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongolian residents of Inner...
, Tungusic
Tungusic languages
The Tungusic languages form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered, and the long-term future of the family is uncertain...
and mainland Paleosiberian languages
Paleosiberian languages
Paleosiberian languages or Paleoasian languages is a term of convenience used in linguistics to classify a disparate group of languages spoken in some parts of north-eastern Siberia and some parts of Russian Far East...
), from Australian Aboriginal languages, and also from the indigenous languages of the southern parts of both North and South America. In Austronesian languages
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
, classifiers have been acquired as a result of contact with Mon–Khmer languages but the most remote members such as Malagasy
Malagasy language
Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
and Hawaiian
Hawaiian language
The Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii...
have gradually lost them.
The World Atlas of Language Structures
World Atlas of Language Structures
The World Atlas of Language Structures is a database of structural properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-ROM in 2005, and was released as the second edition on the Internet in April 2008...
has a global map showing 400 languages and chapter text including geographical discussion:
Noun classifiers vs. noun classes
The concept of noun classifier is distinct from that of noun classNoun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
.
- Classifier systems typically involve 20 or more classifiers (separate lexemeLexemeA lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
s that co-occur with the noun). One hundred classifiers are common, and 400 are attested. Noun class systems typically comprise a closed set of two to twenty classes, into which all nouns in the language are divided. - Not every noun need take a classifier, and many nouns can occur with more than one classifier. In a language with noun classes, each noun typically belongs to one and only one class, which is usually shown by a word form or an accompanying article and functions grammatically. The same referent can be referred by nouns with different noun classes, such as die Frau "the woman" (feminine) and das Weib "the wife" (neuter) in GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. - Noun classes are typically marked by inflectingInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
words, i.e. through bound morphemeBound morphemeIn morphology, a bound morpheme is a morpheme that only appears as part of a larger word; a free morpheme is one that can stand alone.Affixes are always bound. English language affixes are either prefixes or suffixes. E.g., -ment in "shipment" and pre- in "prefix"...
s which cannot appear alone in a sentence. Class may be marked on the noun itself, but will also always be marked on other constituents in the noun phrase or in the sentence that show agreementAgreement (linguistics)In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
with the noun. Noun classifiers are always free lexical items that occur in the same noun phrase as the noun they qualify. They never form a morphologicalMorphology (linguistics)In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
unit with the noun, and there is never agreementAgreement (linguistics)In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
marking on the verbVerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
. - The classifier occurs in only some syntacticSyntaxIn linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
environments. In addition, use of the classifier may be influenced by the pragmaticsPragmaticsPragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...
of styleStylistics (linguistics)Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own...
and the choice of written or spoken mode. Often, the more formal the style, the richer the variety of classifiers used, and the higher the frequency of their use. Noun class markers are mandatory under all circumstances. - Noun classifiers are usually derived from words used as names of concrete, discrete, moveable objects. Noun class markers are typically affixAffixAn affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es without any literal meaning.
Nevertheless, there is no clearly demarked difference between the two: since classifiers often evolve into class systems, they are two extremes of a continuum.
See also
- American Sign Language grammarAmerican Sign Language grammarThe grammar of American Sign Language is the best studied of any sign language, though research is still in its infancy, dating back only to William Stokoe in the 1960s. Stokoe was the first linguist to approach any sign language as a full natural language with its own grammar, an approach which...
- Southern Athabaskan grammar: Classificatory verbs
- Noun classNoun classIn linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
- Analytic language
- Determiner (linguistics)