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Focusing mainly on classifiers, Numeral Classifiers and Classifier Languages offers a deep investigation of three major classifier languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This book provides detailed discussions well supported by empirical evidence and corpus analyses. Theoretical hypotheses regarding differences and commonalities between numeral classifier languages and other mainly article languages are tested to seek universals or typological characteristics. The essays collected here from leading scholars in different fields promise to be greatly significant in the field of linguistics for several reasons. First, it targets three representative classifier languages in Asia. It also provides critical clues and suggests solutions to syntactic, semantic, psychological, and philosophical issues about classifier constructions. Finally, it addresses ensuing debates that may arise in the field of linguistics in general and neighboring inter-disciplinary areas. This book should be of great interest to advanced students and scholars of East Asian languages.

Nominal Arguments in Language Variation investigates nominal arguments in classifier languages, refuting the long-held claim that classifier languages do not have overt article determiners. Li Julie Jiang brings the typologically unique Nuosu Yi, a classifier language that has an overt definite determiner (D), to the forefront of the theoretical investigation. By comparing nominal arguments in Nuosu Yi to those in Mandarin, a well-studied classifier language that has no overt evidence of an article determiner, Jiang provides new accounts of variation among classifier languages and extends the parameters to argument formation in general. In addition to paying particular attention to these two classifier languages, the discussion of nominal arguments also covers a wider range of classifier languages and number marking languages from Romance, Germanic, and Slavic to Hindi. Using a broad cross-linguistic perspective and detailed empirical analysis, Nominal Arguments in Language Variation is an important contribution to research on classifier languages and the fields of theoretical syntax, semantics, language variation, and linguistic typology.

Im Mittelpunkt der Arbeit steht die Frage: Verfügen artikellose Sprachen über Determinatorphrasen? Ausgehend von der Artikelsprache Deutsch werden die funktionalen Korrelaten von Determination für das Chinesische ermittelt. Wichtig ist dabei der Punkt, dass in der transnumeralen Sprache Chinesisch ein anderes nominales Quantifikationssystem als im Deutschen vorliegt. Ein bedeutendes Element ist der Klassifikator. Die Autorin befasst sich insbesondere damit, ob die Klassifikatoren dem Lexikon oder den grammatischen Elementen zugerechnet werden müssen. Die Ergebnisse gehen weit über die bisherigen Beschreibungen und Erklärungen zur Form und Funktion von Determination in artikellosen Klassifikatorsprachen hinaus. Basierend auf der DP-Hypothese wird versucht das DP-Modell zu optimieren.

Partition and Quantity: Numeral Classifiers, Measurement, and Partitive Constructions in Mandarin Chinese presents an in-depth investigation into the semantic and syntactic properties of Chinese classifiers and conducts a comprehensive examination on the use of different quantity constructions in Chinese. This book echoes a rapid development in the past decades in Chinese linguistics research within the generative framework on Chinese classifier phrases, an area that has emerged as one of the most cutting-edge themes in the field of Chinese linguistics. The book on the one hand offers a closer scrutiny on empirical data and revisits some long-lasting research problems, such as the semantic factor bearing on the formation of Chinese numeral classifier constructions, the (non-)licensing of the linker de (的) in between the numeral classifier and the noun, and the conditions regulating the use of pre-classifier adjectives. On the other hand, particular attention is paid to the issues that have been less studied or gone unnoticed in previous studies, including a (more) fine-grained subcategorization of Chinese measurement constructions, the multiple grammatical roles played by the marker de (的) in different numeral classifier constructions, the formation and derivation of Chinese partitive constructions, etc.

This book is an interdisciplinary study of English binominal quantitative constructions based on English-Chinese comparison. Taking three perspectives, i.e. a functional-typological perspective, a cognitive approach, and a corpus-based method, it aims to unveil the hidden categorisation process behind the usage of English binominal quantitative constructions and to reveal the language universal in cognising the concepts of ‘Quantity'and ‘Quality'. It argues against treating Chinese and English as members of two opposing typological camps concerning quantification modes (‘classifier languages'versus ‘non-classifier languages') and advocates to view the two languages as lying within a more extended and inclusive system, viz. a system of quantification and categorisation modes, or a Quantity-Quality continuum.

The Semantics of Chinese Classifiers and Linguistic Relativity focuses on the semantic structure of Chinese classifiers under the cognitive linguistics framework, and the implications thereof on linguistic relativity and language acquisition. It examines the semantic correlation between a given classifier and its associated nouns. Nouns in Chinese, which are assigned specific classifiers according to their selected characteristics, reflect the process of human categorization. The concrete categories formed by the relationship between nouns and classifiers may serve to explain the conceptual structure of the Chinese language and certain underlying aspects of culture and human cognition.Song Jiang is Assistant Professor of Chinese for the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at university of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.