Chinese classifier

The modern Chinese varieties make frequent use of what are called classifiers or measure words. One of the basic uses of classifiers is in phrases in which a noun is qualified by a numeral. When a phrase such as 'one person' or 'three books' is translated into Chinese, it is normally necessary to insert an appropriate classifier between the numeral and the noun. For example, in Standard Mandarin, the first of these phrases would be 一个人 yí gè rén, where yī means 'one', rén means 'person', and gè is the required classifier. There are also other grammatical contexts in which classifiers are used, including after the demonstratives 这 (這) zhè ('this') and 那 nà ('that'); however, when a noun stands alone without any such qualifier, no classifier is needed. There are also various other uses of classifiers: for example, when placed after a noun rather than before it, or when repeated, a classifier signifies a plural or indefinite quantity.demonstrative – number – classifier – adjective – noun— Tai (1994, p. 2), emphasis added— Peyraube (1991, p. 116) The modern Chinese varieties make frequent use of what are called classifiers or measure words. One of the basic uses of classifiers is in phrases in which a noun is qualified by a numeral. When a phrase such as 'one person' or 'three books' is translated into Chinese, it is normally necessary to insert an appropriate classifier between the numeral and the noun. For example, in Standard Mandarin, the first of these phrases would be 一个人 yí gè rén, where yī means 'one', rén means 'person', and gè is the required classifier. There are also other grammatical contexts in which classifiers are used, including after the demonstratives 这 (這) zhè ('this') and 那 nà ('that'); however, when a noun stands alone without any such qualifier, no classifier is needed. There are also various other uses of classifiers: for example, when placed after a noun rather than before it, or when repeated, a classifier signifies a plural or indefinite quantity. The terms 'classifier' and 'measure word' are frequently used interchangeably (as equivalent to the Chinese term 量词 (量詞) liàngcí, which literally means 'measure word'). Sometimes, however, the two are distinguished, with classifier denoting a particle without any particular meaning of its own, as in the example above, and measure word denoting a word for a particular quantity or measurement of something, such as 'drop', 'cupful', or 'liter'. The latter type also includes certain words denoting lengths of time, units of currency, etc. These two types are alternatively called count-classifier and mass-classifier, since the first type can only meaningfully be used with count nouns, while the second is used particularly with mass nouns. However, the grammatical behavior of words of the two types is largely identical. Most nouns have one or more particular classifiers associated with them, often depending on the nature of the things they denote. For example, many nouns denoting flat objects such as tables, papers, beds, and benches use the classifier 张 (張) zhāng, whereas many long and thin objects use 条 (條) tiáo. The total number of classifiers in Chinese may be put at anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred, depending on how they are counted. The classifier 个 (個), pronounced gè or ge in Mandarin, apart from being the standard classifier for many nouns, also serves as a general classifier, which may often (but not always) be used in place of other classifiers; in informal and spoken language, native speakers tend to use this classifier far more than any other, even though they know which classifier is 'correct' when asked. Mass-classifiers might be used with all sorts of nouns with which they make sense: for example, 盒 hé ('box') may be used to denote boxes of objects, such as lightbulbs or books, even though those nouns would be used with their own appropriate count-classifiers if being counted as individual objects. Researchers have differing views as to how classifier–noun pairings arise: some regard them as being based on innate semantic features of the noun (for example, all nouns denoting 'long' objects take a certain classifier because of their inherent longness), while others see them as motivated more by analogy to prototypical pairings (for example, 'dictionary' comes to take the same classifier as the more common word 'book'). There is some variation in the pairings used, with speakers of different dialects often using different classifiers for the same item. Some linguists have proposed that the use of classifier phrases may be guided less by grammar and more by stylistic or pragmatic concerns on the part of a speaker who may be trying to foreground new or important information. Many other languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area exhibit similar classifier systems, leading to speculation about the origins of the Chinese system. Ancient classifier-like constructions, which used a repeated noun rather than a special classifier, are attested in Old Chinese as early as 1400 BCE, but true classifiers did not appear in these phrases until much later. Originally, classifiers and numbers came after the noun rather than before, and probably moved before the noun sometime after 500 BCE. The use of classifiers did not become a mandatory part of Old Chinese grammar until around 1100 CE. Some nouns became associated with specific classifiers earlier than others; the earliest probably being nouns that signified culturally valued items such as horses and poems. Many words that are classifiers today started out as full nouns; in some cases their meanings have been gradually bleached away so that they are now used only as classifiers. In Chinese, a numeral cannot usually quantify a noun by itself; instead, the language relies on classifiers, commonly also referred to as measure words. When a noun is preceded by a number, a demonstrative such as this or that, or certain quantifiers such as every, a classifier must normally be inserted before the noun. Thus, while English speakers say 'one person' or 'this person', Mandarin Chinese speakers say 一个人 (yí ge rén, one-CL person) or 这个人 (zhè ge rén, this-CL person), respectively. If a noun is preceded by both a demonstrative and a number, the demonstrative comes first. (This is just as in English, e.g. 'these three cats'.) If an adjective modifies the noun, it typically comes after the classifier and before the noun. The general structure of a classifier phrase is The tables below give examples of common types of classifier phrases. While most English nouns do not require classifiers or measure words (in English, both “five coffees” and “five cups of coffee” are grammatically correct), nearly all Chinese nouns do; thus, in the first table, phrases that have no classifier in English have one in Chinese. On the other hand, when a noun is not counted or introduced with a demonstrative, a classifier is not necessary: for example, there is a classifier in 三辆车 (sān liàng chē, three-CL car, 'three cars') but not in 我的车 (wǒ-de chē, me-possessive car, 'my car'). Furthermore, numbers and demonstratives are often not required in Chinese, so speakers may choose not to use one—and thus not to use a classifier. For example, to say 'Zhangsan turned into a tree', both 张三变成了一棵树 (Zhāngsān biànchéng -le yì kē shù, Zhangsan become PAST one CL tree) and 张三变成了树 (Zhāngsān biànchéng -le shù, Zhangsan become PAST tree) are acceptable. The use of classifiers after demonstratives is in fact optional. It is also possible for a classifier alone to qualify a noun, the numeral ('one') being omitted, as in 买匹马 mǎi pī mǎ 'buy CL horse', i.e. 'buy a horse'. In addition to their uses with numbers and demonstratives, classifiers have some other functions. A classifier placed after a noun expresses a plural or indefinite quantity of it. For example, 书本 (shū-běn, book-CL) means 'the books' (e.g. on a shelf, or in a library), whereas the standard pre-nominal construction 一本书 (yī běn shū, one-CL book) means 'one book'.