Downing (1996): Numeral Classifier Systems: The Case of Japanese #

This file formalizes the semantic and pragmatic analysis of the Japanese numeral classifier system in [Dow96]. A numeral classifier is a form that follows a numeral, readily co-occurs with a noun denoting the enumerated referent, and denotes a natural unit of that referent whose characteristics dictate its choice, which excludes standard measures, containers, partitions and groupings (Chapter 1); the core inventory of Table 1.1 and the extended inventory of Table 1.2 are Row, each row's entry a classifier of Japanese.Classifiers. The monograph evaluates two universalist hypotheses (Chapter 5). Hypothesis 1, after [Den76], is that classifiers encode categories defined by parameters of physical, functional and social interaction, Interaction, and the core inventory conforms to this extent, core_interaction, though the monograph finds the system adulterated with categories of little cultural weight. Hypothesis 2 is that classifiers supplement the information carried by nouns; the capacity lies with the quality-classifiers, whose deductive categories in the sense of [Hun77] are united by one or two physical properties and crosscut noun categories, against the kind-classifiers of inductive categories, cohesion, the animal and boat categories being inductive categories split by the deductive parameter of size, sizeSplits. The morphemes serving as classifiers mostly bear independent senses related to their categories along the six recurrent patterns of Table 5.2, MorphemeRelation; a seventh pattern attested in other languages is absent from Japanese, relation_ne_sharedQuality, only the pairs of the first pattern are clones of noun categories, and no quality-classifier is one, quality_not_clone. Chapter 7 reconsiders [SS73]'s universal that classifier languages lack obligatory plural marking and [Gre72]'s collective/singulative rationale for it: Japanese common nouns are transnumeral and its pronouns and proper nouns inherently singular, numberSystem, so plural marking is required on the latter and at most possible on the former, Table 7.2, pluralMarking, and is monotone in the animacy of the referent and the referentiality of the noun phrase, pluralMarking_mono_referent and pluralMarking_mono_head, a plurality split in the sense of [SS74]; the same suffixes read as associative plurals on the singular heads and as class plurals on the transnumeral ones, reading. Classifier phrases unitize and plural markers maintain tracking-worthy individuals, so a group is introduced with the former and tracked with the latter and never the reverse, Tracks. The anaphoric use of classifier phrases (Chapter 6) and the four positions of the classifier phrase (Chapter 8) are represented by their examples.

Implementation notes #

The kind/quality distinction is derived from the semantic parameters of each row's category, coded in Aikhenvald's vocabulary from the descriptions of the tables (Row.params): a parameter of physical interaction, including [All77]'s quanta, is deductive, one of functional or social interaction inductive, and a classifier is a quality-classifier when its parameters are all deductive, a kind-classifier when all inductive, mixed when both, and general when it has none. The morpheme-category relations of Table 5.2 are recorded for the rows the monograph assigns; the rows it does not discuss are none, as are mai and tsu, which have no independent sense. Table 7.2 is the function pluralMarking and its regularities are proved by decide over the nine cells. The frequency, breadth, acquisition, anaphoric-distance and construction-distribution counts of Chapters 3, 6 and 8 are corpus statistics and are not represented, nor are the taxonomic analyses of Chapter 4 or the history of Chapter 2.

Downing (1996): Numeral Classifier Systems: The Case of Japanese #

Implementation notes #

References #

The inventory, Tables 1.1 and 1.2 #

Interaction parameters, Hypothesis 1 #

Kind-classifiers and quality-classifiers, Chapter 3 #

The classifier and noun systems, Hypothesis 2 #

Plural markers and classifier phrases as individuators, Chapter 7 #