Edited by Marc Allassonnière-Tang and Marcin Kilarski
Linguists have long been interested in systems of nominal classification due to their diverse functions as well as cognitive and cultural correlates. Among others, ongoing research has focused on semantic, functional and morphosyntactic properties of complex systems such as co-occurring gender and… read more
Past research on the cross-linguistic discourse conditions for the lexical and nonlexical expressions of arguments has shown that semantic role and animacy both play an important role. Some less attention has been paid so far to the choice between different nonlexical expressions, in particular,… read more
Numeral classifiers are one of the most common types of nominal classification systems. Their geographical distribution worldwide is concentrated in Asia, which infers a scheme of diffusion from a linguistic innovation. This study investigates the origin of classifier systems in the Mongolic,… read more
We provide an analysis of the classifier system in Assamese (Indo-European) via the framework of functional typology. Assamese is located at the border of Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan language families, which are typically associated with grammatical gender and classifiers, respectively.… read more
Greenberg (1990a: 292) suggests that classifiers (clf) and numeral bases tend to harmonize in word order, i.e. a numeral (Num) with a base-final [n base] order appears in a clf-final [Num clf] order, e.g. in Mandarin Chinese, san1-bai3 (three hundred) ‘300’ and san1 zhi1 gou3 (three clf animal… read more
