Basic Features of Numeral Classifier System

Numeral classifier (NC) systems are the second most frequently employed type of classification system, after noun class/gender systems. NCs are employed by languages in a range of areas from across East and Southeast Asia and Oceania, and some parts of North America (Aikhenvald, 2000, p. 121; Gil, 2013). An NC system is usually employed in languages which have a large number of numerals. Some languages employ very few numerals, such as ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three, and ‘many’ only.11

These languages tend not to have NCs (Aikhenvald, 2000, p. 99). While an NC system is regarded as a type of grammatical classification system, the presence of an NC system in a language does not necessary exclude other such systems. For example,

11 _{For example, many languages in New Guinea, Australia, and South American Indian languages have} very few numerals (Aikhenvald, 2000, p. 99).

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Yucatec Maya (one of the Mayan languages spoken in some parts in Mexico), is an NC language, but employs a pluralisation system as well. In Yucatec Maya, plural markers are used only for countable animate objects, unlike English which requires plural markers for all countable entities (Foley, 1997, p. 209). Not only in Yucatec Maya but also in some other NC languages, it is not uncommon to attribute plural markers to countable nouns. Korean, for instance, uses –tul, and Japanese uses –tachi, which attach to countable nouns in some cases.12 _{These morphemes are not obligatory}

in these languages from a syntactic perspective, but still work as plural markers (Kang, 1994; Lee, 1999).

About the properties of NCs, firstly from a morphological perspective, Aikhenvald (2000) illustrates three possible properties:

1. They may be independent lexemes. This happens often, but not always, in languages with an isolating structure.

2. They may be affixes, or clitics, attached to, or fused with, numerals.

3. They may be attached to, or fused with, the head noun. This is extremely rare.

(Aikhenvald, 2000, p. 101)

For example, Thai, Burmese, and Vietnamese have NCs which are independent lexemes, so these languages belong to type (1). Japanese NC system, on the other hand, belongs to type (2), as Japanese NCs cannot stand alone but must be attached to numerals at all times.

12 _{‘-tachi’ is often used for animate beings including human beings, but can be used for inanimate} entities as well (Shinmeikai Kokugo Jiten [New Clear-understanding Japanese Dictionary], 1995, p. 780).

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Secondly from a semantic point of view, broadly speaking, classifiers are generally characterised as having meaning. Allan (1977), for example, conducted one of the major early studies on classifiers by surveying more than 50 classifier languages, and identified seven categories of classification: material, shape, consistency, size, location, arrangement, and quanta. NCs are no exception in terms of having meanings, and it has been claimed that NCs are chosen normally on a semantic basis regarding the referent’s animacy, shape (which sometimes includes size), function and structure (Aikhenvald, 2000; Denny, 1976; Iida, 1999; Matsumoto, 1993). As an extreme case of the animacy criterion, Khasi (Austroasiatic family language, which is mainly spoken in Meghalaya state in India and some areas in Bangladesh) has only two numeral classes: for human beings and for non-human beings (Adams, 1986). Regarding the way shapes can be distinguished by NC systems, long and thin (one- dimensional), flat (two-dimensional), and three-dimensional are commonly observed differentiations (Aikhenvald, 2000; Allan, 1977; Bisang, 1999; Craig, 1986; Downing, 1996). It has also been maintained that animacy and dimensional features are perceptually salient to all human beings, so those categorisations are frequently employed across different cultures too (Downing, 1996, p. 135; Yamamoto, 2005, p. 11).

Typological studies have shown that NCs can be thought of as comparatively hierarchically structured systems based on parameters of animacy, shape, and function (Aikhenvald, 2000, p. 98; Allan, 1977; Bisang, 1999; Iida, 1999). On the other hand, some studies which focus more on individual languages argue that NCs are unstructured systems to a degree, that is, that NC systems require speakers to have certain cultural knowledge to choose a ‘correct’ NC for a noun (Matsumoto, 1993; Yamamoto, 2005, p. 11). Yamamoto considers that the actual substance of NCs would be in between these two claims. This is because NC systems are cognitive-based as well as culturally biased, and the former characteristic is related to structured hierarchy

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while the latter is not (Yamamoto, 2005, p. 12) (see also 2.4.4 for the structure of Japanese NCs below).

When it comes to the culturally biased aspect of NC systems, Denny’s analysis makes an interesting contribution (Denny, 1976). Denny says that ‘nouns have more to do with what is out in the world, and classifiers more to do with how humans interact with the world’ (Denny, 1976, p. 125). He claims that there are three kinds of human interaction portrayed through the use of classifiers: physical interaction, functional interaction, and social interaction. Physical interaction is dealing with spatial configuration and strength of materials, and these are related to any manual technology that the community of speakers has (Denny, 1976). For example, members of a culture with hunting and agriculture tend to be more concerned with things like strength of materials (Denny, 1979). In other words, if one culture has more complicated technology for a certain thing than other cultures, its use of classifiers could differ from the others’ in ways that reflect those cultural attributes. Functional interaction is similar to physical interaction in this regard, and social interaction includes distinctions between social members such as men from women, adults from children, and people from animals. These categories of classifiers are key to the expression of status among members of society, among other things. In other words, classifiers reflect the different ways in which speakers view and interact with objects and with others from culture to culture.

NCs in Mesoamerican languages may also provide an example which shows the relationship between the use of NCs and the culture. In some Mayan languages, for example, there is a set of core classifiers which are ‘humans’, ‘animals’, ‘plants’, and ‘inanimate entities’ (Hopkins, 2012). Some of those Mayan languages employ only these four classifiers, but some other Mayan languages utilise hundreds of NCs. According to Hopkins (2012), use of NCs is grammatically similar across Mayan languages, however, the number of NCs employed in each language and what semantic

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criteria are applied for NCs differs significantly. Based on these facts, Hopkins considers that though these Mayan languages belong to the same language family, NC systems in those languages are not inherited from one original language but came to be utilised in each language after diversification (Hopkins, 2012).

Concerning more practical points of NCs in use, it has been argued that nouns can often be matched to more than one NC. In many cases, it depends on the perspective the speaker has towards the referent in the context. However, this feature differs from language to language. For example, it has been claimed that Thai does not allow speakers to use NCs flexibly to the extent that some other languages do, due to its lexical rules (Bisang, 1999).13 _{On the other hand, NCs in some languages}

demonstrate a considerable variety of uses (Gil, 2013).

Regarding the reason for such variation in possible NCs for one noun, Adams (1986) considers that nouns are just a symbol and classifiers are supplementally giving information about specific characteristics of the noun as far as the speaker is concerned. For instance, in Burmese, the speaker’s emotion can affect the choice of NC for human referents. Speakers tend to use NCs normally used for animals for human beings when they are angry at the referents (Adams, 1986). Usage very similar to this is found in Japanese as well. In Japanese, the NC for comparatively small animate beings, hiki, is sometimes used for human beings quite creatively and metaphorically. Hiki being a target NC in this thesis, details are discussed in the analysis chapter (see 4.4 for the metaphorical use of hiki). These kinds of extended or metaphorical usages are frequently observed in poetry and novels as well. For example, in Bahnar (of the Austroasiatic language family, spoken in Vietnam), in poems, children are counted by

13 _{In some cases, Thai speaker’s emotion can affect the choice of the NC used for human referent, in a} similar way to Burmese (as introduced below). For example, when the speaker is upset, NCs normally used for other animate beings can be employed to count human beings in some specific circumstances (C. Svetanant, personal communication, June 30, 2018).

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a classifier which means ‘seed’ instead of the one for human beings.14 _{With the use of}

this classifier, the writer can subtly include the special meanings of ‘smallness’ and ‘the possibility of growing in the future’ (Adams, 1986).

So far, basic features of NC systems and a variety of uses of NCs have been illustrated. In the following subsections, NC systems in Chinese and in Korean are described.