Re: question about classifiers

Nik Taylor scripsit:

> I believe so.  I suspect that what originally motivated their
> development in languages with them is either areal influence, or, in the
> case of the original language with it, too many homophones.  For
> instance, if a word _zang_ could mean "chicken", "boat" or "book" you
> might have "food-zang", "travel-zang" and "thing-zang" or something like
> that, with the first element evolving into a classifier by becoming
> restricted in use.
Naah.  Classifiers are old in Chinese, way before the changes that
led to homophony in Mandarin Chinese.  Cantonese has no such excess
homophony, but classifiers are common.  They have to exist because
all Chinese nouns are mass nouns.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin