A classifier (abbreviated or ) is a word or affix that accompanies nouns and can be considered to "classify" a noun depending on some characteristics (e.g. humanness, animacy, sex, shape, social status) of its referent. Classifiers in this sense are specifically called noun classifiers because some languages in Papua as well as the Americas have verbal classifiers which categorize the referent of its argument.
In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted, that is, when it appears with a numeral. In such languages, a phrase such as "three people" is often required to be expressed as "three X (of) people", where X is a classifier appropriate to the noun for "people"; compare to "three blades of grass". Classifiers that appear next to a numeral or a quantifier are particularly called numeral classifiers. They play an important role in certain languages, especially East and Southeast Asian languages, including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese.
Numeral classifiers may have other functions too; in Chinese, they are commonly used when a noun is preceded by a demonstrative (word meaning "this" or "that"). Some Asian languages like Zhuang, Hmong and Cantonese use "bare classifier construction" where a classifier is attached without numerals to a noun for definite reference; the latter two languages also extend numeral classifiers to the possessive classifier construction where they behave as a possessive marker connecting a noun to another noun that denotes the possessor.
Possessive classifiers are usually used in accord with semantic characteristics of the possessed noun and less commonly with the relation between the possessed and the possessor although possessor classifiers are reported in a few languages (e.g. Dâw).
Classifiers are absent or marginal in European languages. An example of a possible classifier in English is piece in phrases like "three pieces of paper". In American Sign Language, particular classifier handshapes represent a noun's orientation in space.
There are similarities between classifier systems and noun classes, although there are also significant differences. While noun classes are defined in terms of agreement, classifiers do not alter the form of other elements in a clause. Also, languages with classifiers may have hundreds of classifiers whereas languages with noun classes (or in particular, genders) tend to have a smaller number of classifiers. Noun classes are not always dependent on the nouns' meaning but they have a variety of grammatical consequences.
Overview A classifier is a word (or in some analyses, a bound morpheme) which accompanies a noun in certain grammatical contexts, and generally reflects some kind of conceptual classification of nouns, based principally on features of their referents. Thus a language might have one classifier for nouns representing persons, another for nouns representing flat objects, another for nouns denoting periods of time, and so on. The assignment of classifier to noun may also be to some degree unpredictable, with certain nouns taking certain classifiers by historically established convention.
The situations in which classifiers may or must appear depend on the grammar of the language in question, but they are frequently required when a noun is accompanied by a numeral. They are therefore sometimes known (particularly in the context of languages such as Japanese) as counter words. They may also be used when a noun is accompanied by a demonstrative (a word such as "this" or "that").
The following examples, from Standard Mandarin Chinese, illustrate the use of classifiers with a numeral. The classifiers used here are 位 (pinyin wèi), used (among other things) with nouns for humans; 棵 kē, used with nouns for trees; 只/隻 (zhī), used with nouns for certain animals, including birds; and 条/條 (tiáo), used with nouns for certain long flexible objects. (Plurals of Chinese nouns are not normally marked in any way; the same form of the noun is used for both singular and plural.)
个 (個) gè, is also often used in informal speech as a general classifier, with almost any noun, taking the place of more specific classifiers.
The noun in such phrases may be omitted, if the classifier alone (and the context) is sufficient to indicate what noun is intended. For example, in answering a question:
Languages which make systematic use of (noun) classifiers include Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Southeast Asian languages, Bengali, Assamese, Persian, Austronesian languages, Mayan languages and others. A less typical example of classifiers is those used with the verb. Verbal classifiers are found in languages like Southern Athabaskan.
Classifier handshapes are also found in sign languages, although these have a somewhat different grammatical function.
Classifiers are often derived from nouns (or occasionally other parts of speech), which have become specialized as classifiers, or may retain other uses besides their use as classifiers. Classifiers, like other words, are sometimes borrowed from other languages. A language may be said to have dozens or even hundreds of different classifiers. However, such enumerations often also include measure words.
Classifiers versus measure words Measure words play a similar role to classifiers, except that they denote a particular quantity of something (a drop, a cupful, a pint, etc.), rather than the inherent countable units associated with a count noun. Classifiers are used with count nouns; measure words can be used with mass nouns (e.g. "two pints of mud"), and can also be used when a count noun's quantity is not described in terms of its inherent countable units (e.g. "two pints of acorns").
However, the terminological distinction between classifiers and measure words is often blurred – classifiers are commonly referred to as measure words in some contexts, such as Chinese language teaching, and measure words are sometimes called mass-classifiers or similar.
Examples by language
European languages Classifiers are not generally a feature of English or other European languages, although classifier-like constructions are found with certain nouns. A commonly cited English example is the word head in phrases such as "five head of cattle": the word cattle (for some speakers) is an uncountable (mass) noun, and requires the word head to enable its units to be counted. The parallel construction exists in French: une tête de bétail ("one head of cattle"), in Spanish: una cabeza de ganado ("one head of cattle") and in Italian: un capo di bestiame ("one head of cattle"). Note the difference between "five head of cattle" (meaning five animals), and "five heads of cattle" (identical to "five cattle's heads", meaning specifically their heads). A similar phrase used by florists is "ten stem of roses" (meaning roses on their stems).
European languages naturally use measure words. These are required for counting in the case of mass nouns, and some can also be used with count nouns. For example, one can have a glass of beer, and a handful of coins. The English construction with of is paralleled in many languages, although in German (and similarly in Dutch and the Scandinavian languages) the two words are simply juxtaposed, e.g. one says ein Glas Bier (literally "a glass beer", with no word for "of"). Slavic languages put the second noun in the genitive case (e.g. Russian (), literally "a beer's glass"), but Bulgarian, having lost the Slavic case system, uses expressions identical to German (e.g. ).
Certain nouns are associated with particular measure words or other classifier-like words that enable them to be counted. For example, paper is often counted in sheets as in "five sheets of paper". Usage or non-usage of measure words may yield different meanings, e.g. five papers is grammatically equally correct but refers to newspapers or academic papers. Some inherently plural nouns require the word (or its equivalent) to enable reference to a single object or specified number of objects, as in "a pair of scissors", "three pairs of pants", or the French une paire de lunettes ("a pair of (eye)glasses").
Australian Aboriginal Languages Australian Aboriginal languages are known for often having extensive noun class systems based on semantic criteria. In many cases, a given noun can be identified as a member of a given class via an adjacent classifier, which can either form a hyponym construction with a specific noun, or act as a generic noun on its own.
Kuuk Thaayorre
In the following example from Kuuk Thaayorre, the specific borrowed noun tin.meat 'tinned meat' is preceded by its generic classifier minh 'meat.'
In the next example, the same classifier minh stands in on its own for a generic crocodile (punc), another member of the minh class:
Classifiers and specific nouns in Kuuk Thaayorre can also co-occupy the head of a noun phrase to form something like a compound or complex noun as in ngat minh.patp ' hawk' which is the complex noun meaning 'stingray'.
ClassifierNoun Classminhedible land animals: meat, land animals that one eats, all birds, inedible aquatic animals (e.g. crocodiles).ngatedible aquatic animalsmayedible plants: non-meat food, a meal, honey, honey beesngokliquidskuukstructured utterances: speech, languages, birdsongwarrathgrassesyuk1trees: tree species and tree partsyuk2elongated objects: cigarettes, aeroplanes, cyclones, microphonesraak1locations: place names, geographical areas, ground, the earth, soil.raak2times: diurnal phases, seasons, etc.raak3items of material culture: moneypam1people: humans genericallypam2men: adult male humanspaanthwomen: adult female humansparr_ryouth: immature humans and other specieskutasocial animals: cats, dingoesnganrelativesruurrinsects
Diyari
Another example of this kind of hyponym construction can be seen in Diyari:
See the nine Diyari classifiers below
ClassifierNoun Classkarnahuman beings, excluding non-Aboriginal peoplepayabirds which flythutyureptiles and insectsnganthiother edible animatespukaedible vegetable foodpirtatrees and woodmardastone and minerals (including introduced metallic entities)thurrufirengapawater
Ngalakgan
Contrast the above with Ngalakgan in which classifiers are prefixes on the various phrasal heads of the entire noun phrase (including modifiers):
Ngalakgan has fewer noun classes than many Australian Languages, the complete set of its class prefixes are below:
+CL PrefixNoun Classrnu(gu)-male humans and higher animals; most other animals; etc.dju(gu)-female humans and higher animalsmu(ngu)-most edible (and some inedible) plants; some
implements; seasons; etc.gu(ngu)-most body parts; most implements; many plants, topographical terms; etc.
Bengali, Assamese, Maithili and Nepali
Atypically for an Indo-European language, Bengali makes use of classifiers. Every noun in this language must have its corresponding classifier when used with a numeral or other quantifier. Most nouns take the generic classifier ṭa, although there are many more specific measure words, such as jon, which is only used to count humans. Still, there are many fewer measure words in Bengali than in Chinese or Japanese. As in Chinese, Bengali nouns are not inflected for number.
Bengali examples