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A classifier, in linguistics, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify the referent which a word designates. Classifier systems should not be confused with noun classes, which categorize words independently from their referents, often according to morphology.
Definition and examples In a language with noun classifiers, a noun may or may not be accompanied by a noun classifier, which shows a conceptual classification of the referent of a noun and is commonly used when counting the referents. Noun classifiers are not grammatical but lexical items, and a language may have hundreds of noun classifiers. For instance, in Japanese, the noun classifier for humans is nin, which is used to count humans, whatever noun is used for them. E.g.: 3-nin no seito (lit. 3 people of student = 3 students) 3-nin no sensei (lit. 3 people of teacher = 3 teachers) As this example shows, the noun classifier agrees with the referent of a noun, not with the noun itself. Since noun classifiers are words, not grammatical functions, it is not uncommon to import noun classifiers from other languages. They are very much like measure words in this respect; when counting cups of coffee, it does not matter what noun one uses for coffee, such as two cups of Mocha and three cups of Java. A more detailed example can be found at . Examples of languages with noun classifiers are Japanese, Chinese, Southeast Asian languages, Austronesian languages, and Mayan languages. Classifiers are a very typical feature of sign languages. Noun classifiers vs. noun classes A noun classifier system is not the same as a noun class system. Measure words Classifiers are most often used when counting. Their use is thus analogous to English words that represent units or portions of mass nouns, for example one drop of milk, fifty head of cattle, three pieces of cake. This particular type of classifier is called a measure word, as well as a counter or counting word. However, it must be noted that not all classifiers are strictly measure words. In Chinese, for example, classifiers are also used with determiners such as "this", "that", etc. See also Bibliography | ||||||||
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