First of all, it should be noted that Japanese has derived a lot of language elements, including orthographic characters and lexical items, from Chinese (Frellesvig, 2010). The Japanese NC system itself also may have been derived from Chinese, judging from some of the oldest written Japanese documents as evidence, such as Kojiki 古事 記 (713), Nihonshoki 日本書紀 (720), and Manyooshuu 万葉集 (759) (Downing, 1996, p. 35) (see 2.4.2 for details about this literature below). These are the oldest surviving written Japanese literature, and NCs appearing in this literature seem to have been borrowed from Chinese. Thus, it can be assumed that the Japanese NC system has been borrowed from Chinese, or at least has been signifianly influenced by Chinese even if there had been an indigenous Japanese system before contact with China (Downing, 1996, p. 35). Therefore, it is quite understandable that, even nowadays, the Japanese NC system is similar to the Chinese NC system to some extent. However, there are notable differences between NC systema in these two languages. For example, Chinese NCs appear not only with numerals but also demonstratives such as zhèí ge píngguǒ (this CLF apple), while Japanese NCs can only occur with a numeral (Gil, 2013).
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It is well known that Chinese has a large number of NCs. More than 900 classifiers appear in the Dictionary of Chinese Classifiers (1988, as cited in H. Zhang, 2007) and the Mandarin Chinese Classifier Dictionary has 427 NCs and measure words (Chang et al., 1994; Huang et al., 1995, as cited in C.-R. Huang & Ahrens, 2003).15 According to H. Zhang , there are two types of NC in Chinese: count-noun
classifiers and mass-noun classifiers (H. Zhang, 2007).16 As the names indicate,
count-noun classifiers are used for countable entities which have a clear outline. Mass- noun classifiers, on the other hand (Nishida, Watahiki, & Gao, 1998), can be used for countable nouns as well as uncountable nouns which do not have a clear boundary. For instance, ben in liang ben shu (two-books) is a count-noun classifier. Though the referent ‘book’ is the same, xiang in liang xiang shu (two boxes of books) is a mass- noun classifier. Similarly, ping in liang ping jiu (two bottles of wine) is a mass-noun classifier (H. Zhang, 2007), but the referent ‘wine’, unlike ‘books’ is one that does not have a clear boundary and therefore could not be counted with a count-noun classifier. From a syntactic perspective, both count-noun classifiers and mass-noun classifiers occur in almost the same position, however, they play a different role in each use. Count-noun classifiers can convey some meaning while mass-noun classifiers are just expressing quantifying information about the referent concerned. This is quite similar to Japanese. In Japanese, there are also NCs which are generally used for nouns with a clear outline, and quantifiers, which are used more as a container to quantify entities which do not have a clear shape (Iwasaki, 2013, p. 75). In Chinese, count-noun classifiers do not only quantify but also qualify and convey specific information about the referent. The moon, for example, can take a few different classifiers depending on
15 The number found in the Dictionary of Chinese Classifiers includes not only NCs but also verb classifiers, measurement units, and so on (H. Zhang, 2007).
16 Count-noun classifiers are also referred as ‘count-classifiers’ or ‘qualifying classifiers’ and mass- noun classifiers are referred as ‘massifiers’, ‘quantifiers’ or ‘measure words’.
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its shape, so the full moon is matched to lun and a crescent moon takes wan.17 Though
the noun ‘moon’ is the same, the choice of NC can convey additional information about its shape. For another example, ‘san zhang baozi’ means ‘three pages of a newspaper’, ‘san fen baozi’ means ‘three subscriptions of a newspaper’ and ‘san jia baozi’ means ‘three newspaper companies’. The words for ‘three’ and ‘newspaper’ remain the same in each, so this example also clearly shows that each NC transforms the meaning conveyed by the noun (H. Zhang, 2007).
Furthermore, though children are taught ‘correct’ NCs for each noun in school, the choice of NC in Chinese in the context of real life is not always predictable. This is the same in Japanese, in that one noun can often take a couple of alternative NCs. Since NCs have their own meaning, they are not always chosen by following grammatical rules; the speaker’s perception towards the referent concerned at the time of speech often affects the choice of NC in both Chinese and Japanese (C.-R. Huang & Ahrens, 2003; H. Zhang, 2007). Concerning differences between NC systems in these two languages, Japanese NCs are generally divided into animate and inanimate, and this is considered to be a fundamental boundary (Downing, 1996, p. 67; Iida, 1999; Iwasaki, 2013, p. 77). This is by no means a unique characteristic of Japanese but is observed in a number of NC languages (Aikhenvald, 2000, p. 112). On the other hand, this boundary in Chinese is not as rigid as in Japanese, so some Chinese NCs can be used for both animate and inanimate entities. For instance, tiao is used for any entities which are one-dimensionally long and thin. Therefore snake, river, and street are all able to be counted by tiao (Yamamoto, 2005, p. 43; H. Zhang, 2007). In Japanese, the NC hon is used for long and thin objects, however hon cannot be used for long and thin animate beings such as snakes or worms.18 Instead, Japanese employs hiki for
17 The word ‘lun’ refers to a wheel, and lun is used for the sun as well. ‘Wan’ means curved or bending. 18 These thin creatures might be counted by hon when they are dead and therefore no longer treated as living creatures.
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animate beings in general. In Chinese, moreover, even fish and sharks can be counted by the same NC tiao while they can also be counted by another NC, zhi, normally used for animate beings (C.-R. Huang & Ahrens, 2003; H. Zhang, 2007).
It should also be mentioned that Chinese employs NCs not only for entities but also for events. C.-R. Huang and Ahrens (2003) propose that Chinese NCs consist of three kinds: those for individuals, kinds, and events, while the majority of studies have focused on only the NCs that cater for individuals. In Chinese, there are indeed 35 event NCs (Huang et al. 1995, as cited in C.-R. Huang & Ahrens 2003). C.-R. Huang and Ahrens claim that Chinese event classifiers are highly specialised since they require a particular type of event. Compared to Chinese, Japanese employs far fewer classifiers for events and actions (C.-R. Huang & Ahrens, 2003). Japanese has just a few NCs which can be used for events, while there are hundreds for entities. However, in Japanese, there are NCs which can be used for both entities as well as events (see 2.4.5 for details of these below).
It is also an interesting characteristic of the Chinese NC system that Chinese does not have a specific NC for human beings.19 In general, ge is used for ordinary
people, but ge is actually a general NC in Chinese. Nor does Chinese employ a general NC to cover animate beings other than human beings (Bisang, 1999). There are a few specialised NCs for animate beings, but there is no general NC which can replace all others. Compared to Chinese in this respect, Japanese has both a general NC for human beings (nin) and for animate beings other than human beings (hiki).
In the present section, the Chinese NC system has been reviewed, and the following section (2.3.3) takes a brief look at the Korean NC system.
19 There is an NC for human beings, which is wei, but wei is used only for people in a high position in a formal context (Bisang, 1999).
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