A Look at English & Chinese Classifiers and

its Implications for Teaching

Dongdong Chen

Seton Hall University

May 2, 2015

Agenda

1. What are classifiers?

2. Are there any classifiers in English?

3. How do classifiers behave in Chinese?

4. Implications for teaching

What are Classifiers?• Byeong-uk Yi (2009)

Particles that appear in between a numeral and a noun, known as numeral classifiers or classifiers.

• Classifiers: 分类词，单位词，量词

• Measure words, 数量词

• Languages that include classifiers are called numeral classifier languages or classifier languages, e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Korean.

Are there any classifiers in English?

Class 1:

a. one person two persons

b. one book two books

c. one school two schools

Class 2:

a. a bottle of water two bottles of water

b. a cup of coffee two cups of coffee

c. a glass of wine two glasses of wine

Count-mass distinction is syntactically realized through number morphology

CL is used before mass nouns

count nouns

mass nouns

How do classifiers behave in Chinese?Class 1:

a. san ge ren 三个人

b. san zhi bi 三支笔

c. san ben shu 三本书

Class 2:

a. san ping pijiu 三瓶啤酒

b. san ba mianfen 三把面粉

c. san wan routang 三碗肉汤

Count-mass distinction is syntactically realized through classifiers

CL used before count nouns

CL used before mass nouns

count-classifiers

mass-classifiers

Any particular features of Count Classifiers & Mass Classifiers in Chinese?

Feature 1Class 1:

a. *san ge de ren 三个的人

b. *san zhi de bi 三支的笔

c. *san ben de shu 三本的书

Class 2:

a. san ping de pijiu 三瓶的啤酒

b. san ba de mianfen 三把的面粉

c. san wan de routang 三碗的肉汤

的 cannot be added to the front of nouns

的 can be added to the front of nouns

count-classifiers

mass-classifiers

Feature 2Class 1:

a. *san da ge ren 三大个人

b. *san da zhi bi 三大支笔

c. *san da ben shu 三大本书

Class 2:

a. san da ping pijiu 三大瓶啤酒

b. san da ba mianfen 三大把面粉

c. san da wan routang 三大碗肉汤

Adj cannot be added to the front of classifiers

Adj can be added to the front of classifiers

count-classifiers

mass-classifiers

Feature 1 + Feature 2Class 1:

a. *san da ge de ren 三大个的人

b. *san da zhi de bi 三大支的笔

c. *san da ben de shu 三大本的书

Class 2:

a. san da ping de pijiu 三大瓶的啤酒

b. san da ba de mianfen 三大把的面粉

c. san da wan de rou tang 三大碗的肉汤

More examples in Chinese

• 受了一肚子气 受了一大肚子的气

• 做了一桌子菜 做了一大桌子的菜

• 遭了一辈子罪 遭了一辈子的罪

• 吃了一辈子苦 吃了一辈子的苦

• 流了一身汗 流了一身的汗

• 用了一生积蓄 用了一生的积蓄

• 说了一路话 说了一路的话

• 买了一车货 买了一大车的货

• 看了一天书 看了一整天的书

• 读了四年书 读了四年的书

• 当了十年兵 当了十年的兵

Summary

I. Num. + count-classifiers + de + N bad

Num. + mass-classifiers + de + N good

II. Num. + ADJ + count-classifiers + N bad

Num. + ADJ + mass- classifiers + N good

III. Num. + ADJ + count-classifiers + de + N bad

Num. + ADJ + mass- classifiers + de + N good

More examples in English

• a herd of cows 一群牛

• a flock of chickens 一群鸡

• a school of fish 一群鱼

• a gaggle of geese 一群鹅

• a pride of lions 一群狮

• a murder of crows 一群乌鸦

• a murder of lawyers 一群律师

• an exaltation of doves 一群鸽子

• a parliament of owls 一群鹰

• a group of baboons 一群狒狒

• A congress of baboons 一群狒狒

• a cry of hounds 一群猎狗

• a pack of wolves 一群狼

• a tower of giraffes 一群长颈鹿

• a leap of hares 一群野兔

• a sneak of weasels 一群黄鼠狼

Syntactic Analysis (Cheng & Sybesma, 1998)

a. Num-CL –de的-N

b. Num-CL-N

In (a), Num-CL –de的 is a relative clause, serving as a modifier for the following noun.

In (b), Num-CL –N there is an operation of N-to-CL movement.

Semantic Analysis (王勇, 2006)主要取决于量词与数词、量词与名词间的语义关系。如果量词与数词联系紧密，则可加

“的”。如度量衡量词，借用量词（可容型、可附型），重在计量。

一斤的香蕉

一碗的糯米

一篮子的苹果

一头的雾水

一丝的希望

如果量词与名词关系密切，则不可加“的”：如个体量词，集合量词（含定量词、不定量词、部分量词），重在限定、描绘。

*一根的香蕉

*一粒的糯米

*一个的苹果

*一把的面粉

可容型借用量词 + 的 good

度量衡量词 + 的 good

个体量词 + 的 bad

个体量词 + 的 bad

个体量词 + 的 bad

可容型借用量词 + 的 good

可附型借用量词 + 的 good 头、口、手、脸

两、尺、寸、升、米、里、亩

杯、瓶、缸、桶、车、蓝、筐

借用量词 + 的 good

部分量词 + 的 bad 些、点、片、层

个、根、面、粒、顶、只、条、件、

Implications for Teaching• Explain the concept by comparing the

commonalities between Chinese & English

• Point out the differences between Chinese & English

• Practice with examples

• Memorize idiosyncratic expressions

References Cheng, Lisa L.-S. & R. Sybesma (1998). “Yi-wan Tang, Yi-ge Tang: classifiers and

massifiers”, The Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, New Series 28, pp. 385-412.

Cheng, Lisa L.-S. & R. Sybesma (1999). “Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP”, Linguistic Inquiry 30, pp. 509-542.

Sinica Corpus, http://app.sinica.edu.tw/cgi-bin/kiwi/mkiwi/kiwi.sh.Tang, Chih-Chen Jane (2005). “Nouns or Classifiers: A Non-movement Analysis of Classifiers in Chinese”, Language and Linguistics 6.3: pp. 431-472.

Yi, Byeong-uk. (2009). “Chinese Classifiers and Count Nouns”, Journal of Cognitive Science 10, pp. 209-225;

Yi, Byeong-uk. (2011). “Afterthoughts on Chinese Classifiers and Count Nouns”, in Young-wha Kim (ed.), Plurality in Classifier Languages, Hankookmunhwasa, pp. 265-282.

Yip, Chak-Lam Colum. (2008). “Complicating the Oversimplification: Chinese Numeral Classifiers and True Measures”, in Marjorie K.M. Chan and Hana Kang (eds.), Proceedings of the 20th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics Volume 1, pp. 285-295.

王勇 2006 数量词 + 名词与“的”，《社会科学家》，2006年 3月.张赪 2012 汉语通用量词的发展与汉语量词范畴的确立，Journal of Chinese

Linguistics， Vol. 40, 2 (2012).

Thank You!

Questions and Answers