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Focusing mainly on classifiers, Numeral Classifiers and Classifier Languages offers a deep investigation of three major classifier languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This book provides detailed discussions well supported by empirical evidence and corpus analyses. Theoretical hypotheses regarding differences and commonalities between numeral classifier languages and other mainly article languages are tested to seek universals or typological characteristics. The essays collected here from leading scholars in different fields promise to be greatly significant in the field of linguistics for several reasons. First, it targets three representative classifier languages in Asia. It also provides critical clues and suggests solutions to syntactic, semantic, psychological, and philosophical issues about classifier constructions. Finally, it addresses ensuing debates that may arise in the field of linguistics in general and neighboring inter-disciplinary areas. This book should be of great interest to advanced students and scholars of East Asian languages.
List of contents
Chapter I: Numeral Classifiers and Diversity of Classifier Systems
Chapter II: Taxonomy of Numeral Classifiers:
A Formal Semantic Proposal
Chapter III: Japanese Semantics and the Mass/Count DistinctionChapter IV: A Continuum-Based Approach to the Count-Mass Distinction in Korean
Chapter V: Anti-Generic (Existential) and Distributive Nature of NumCL-Marking
Chapter VI: Classifiers, Articles, and Bare Nominals
Chapter VII: Japanese Numeral Quantifiers that Count Events
Chapter VIII: How Classifiers Affect the Mental Representation of Entities
Chapter IX: Descriptive Function of Numeral Classifiers: A Corpus Based Analysis of Numeral Classifiers in Korean
About the author
Chungmin Lee is Professor Emeritus it the Department of Linguistics at Seoul National University and a member of National Academy of Sciences, the Republic of Korea.
Young-Wha Kim is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English Language & Literature at Hallym University in the Republic of Korea.
Byeong-uk Yi is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto in Canada.
Summary
Focussing mainly on classifiers, Numeral Classifier and Classifier Languages offers a deep investigation of the three major classifier languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. It provides detailed discussions well supported by empirical evidence and corpus analyses.
Additional text
'This is the first volume, published for an international audience, that draws together a group of leading researchers in numeral classifiers in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The articles included in the volume provide not only fresh data on numeral classifiers but also innovative approaches to the topic. The volume will serve as a useful resource for advanced postgraduate students and all scholars who work on the topic.' — Jaejung Song, Professor, Department of English and Linguistics, University of Otago, New Zealand
