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Article published In: Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 41:1 (2014) ► pp.33–78

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The Place of Classifiers in the History of Linguistics

 | Adam Mickiewicz University
Published online: 10 June 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.41.1.02kil
Summary
This article examines the approaches to classifiers within the Western tradition, ranging from the earliest accounts of the languages of Mesoamerica and East Asia from the 16th-17th centuries to ongoing discussions regarding their semantic motivation and functionality. I show that in spite of the limited attention they attracted before the 1970s, classifiers have played an important role in discussions concerning such notions as the functions of grammatical categories, the distinction between grammar and lexicon as well as the cognitive and cultural correlates of linguistic structure. In addition, I attribute common assumptions about classifiers to projections of typical properties of grammatical gender and, more generally, semantic and morphosyntactic properties of non-classifier languages.
Résumé
Cet article examine les différentes approches des classificateurs dans la tradition occidentale, depuis les tous premiers rapports sur les langues d’Amérique centrale et d’Extrême-Orient des XVIe et XVIIe siècles jusqu’aux débats en cours sur leur motivation sémantique et leur fonctionnalité. Je montre qu’en dépit de l’attention limitée qu’ils ont suscitée avant les années 1970, les classificateurs ont joué un rôle important dans les débats concernant des notions telles que les fonctions des catégories grammaticales, la distinction entre grammaire et lexique, ainsi que les corrélats cognitifs et culturels de la structure linguistique. En outre, l’auteur attribue des affirmations courantes sur les classificateurs à des projections des propriétés typiques du genre grammatical et, plus généralement, des propriétés sémantiques et morphosémantiques des langues sans classificateurs.
Zusammenfassung
In dem Beitrag geht es um die Behandlung von Klassifikatoren in der westlich orientierten Sprachwissenschaft, und dies von den frühesten Darstellungen mesoamerikanischer und ostasiatischer Sprachen im 16. und 17. Jhdt. bis hin zu der immer noch andauerenden Diskussion zu ihrer semantischen Motiviertheit und Funktionalität. Es wird gezeigt, dass Klassifikatoren, trotz der eingeschränkten Aufmerksamkeit, die sie vor 1970 auf sich gezogen hatten, eine wichtige Rolle in der Diskussionen um die Funktion grammatischer Kategorien, aber auch für die Unterscheidung zwischen Grammatik und Lexikon und ebenso für kognitive und kulturelle Korrelate linguistischer Strukturen gespielt haben. Dieser Auffassung von Klassifikatoren schreibt der Autor auch allgemeinere Annahmen zu typischen Eigenschaften von grammatischem Geschlechts und, noch allgemeiner, semantischen und morphosyntaktischen Eigenschaften klassifikatorenloser Sprachen zu.
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2020. Numeral base, numeral classifier, and noun. Language and Linguistics. 語言暨語言學 21:4 ► pp. 511 ff. DOI logo
Her, One-Soon & Marc Tang
2020. A Statistical Explanation of the Distribution of Sortal Classifiers in Languages of the World via Computational Classifiers. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 27:2 ► pp. 93 ff. DOI logo
Basirat, Ali & Marc Tang
2019. Linguistic Information in Word Embeddings. In Agents and Artificial Intelligence [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 11352], ► pp. 492 ff. DOI logo
Wichmann, Søren
2018. Introduction. In The Diachrony of Classification Systems [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 342], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Nübling, Damaris
2015. Die Bismarck – der Arena – das Adler. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 43:2 ► pp. 306 ff. DOI logo
Nübling, Damaris
2017. The growing distance between proper names and common nouns in German: On the way to onymic schema constancy. Folia Linguistica 51:2 DOI logo
Nübling, Damaris
2020.  Die Capital – der Astra – das Adler . In Walking on the grammaticalization path of the definite article [Studies in Language Variation, 23], ► pp. 227 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences, 2014. Isis 105:S1 ► pp. i ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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