Classifiers in East and Southeast Asian languages Counting and beyond Walter Bisang 1. Introduction utrponlihfeaG 1.1. General outline of the paper zyxwvutsrponmlkjihgfedcbaWVTSPNMJIHGECA The function of classifiers is to make count nouns enumerable by individual- izing and classifying them. This is more or less the standard view on classifi- ers. In fact, there are many languages such as Modern Standard Chinese and Japanese in which this is their main function. However, this is not the only function that classifiers can display in the languages of East and Southeast Asia. In some languages, classifiers go beyond counting. As we shall see from Vietnamese, they can even display the functions of individualization and classification without being primarily involved in counting (§ 1.2, §2.3.2.2). In addition to the functions of individualization and classification, classifiers are also used in the context of reference (function of referentialization) and/ or in the context of possession and relative clauses (function of referentiali- zation). The languages to be discussed for these additional functions are Thai, Hmong, Cantonese, and the Miao language of Weining (Guizhou Province, China). If we want to understand how it is possible for one and the same linguistic item to be maximally used for all of these four functions we have to look at the common cognitive basis that allows classifiers to further expand their functional range. Since this is a challenge which needs more than just a paper and since my primary aim is to present empirical evidence, I shall only give a sketch of the basic cognitive operations that may be involved in classi- fiers and their functional expansion (cf. §1.2, §2.2.3 and §2.3.1). The fact that classifiers can go beyond counting provides a valuable and fascinating em- pirical basis for understanding what counting has in common with other gram- matical functions. As will be shown in this paper, there is an enormous range of functional variation among language specific classifier systems of which most com- parative studies on classifiers do not seem to be aware. Nevertheless, the whole range of variation seems to be connected to only two diachronic proc- Brought to you by | University of Massachusetts - Amherst W.E.B. Du Bois Library Authenticated | 172.16.1.226 Download Date | 8/8/12 2:08 AM