In Chinese, classifiers are words that must be used whenever a noun is modified by a number or a demonstrative such as "this" and "that". There are as many as 150 different classifiers, and many nouns are associated with certain ones—for example, flat objects such as tables use the classifier zhāng, whereas long objects such lines use tiáo. How exactly these classifier–noun associations are formed has been a subject of debate, with some linguists proposing that they are based on innate semantic features (i.e., all nouns with "long" features use a certain classifier), and others suggesting that they are motivated by analogy to prototypical pairings (i.e., dictionaries and textbooks use whatever the more general noun "book" uses). There is also, however, a "general classifier", gè, which can be used in place of the specific classifiers; in informal speech, this one is used far more than any other. Furthermore, speakers often choose to use only a bare noun, dropping both the classifier and the number or demonstrative preceding it; therefore, some linguists believe that classifiers are used more for pragmatic reasons, such as foregrounding new information, rather than for strict grammatical reasons.
Read the rest of this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classifier> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1283: Dafydd ap Gruffydd the Prince of Wales, the last native ruler of Wales to resist English domination, was executed by drawing and quartering. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dafydd_ap_Gruffydd> 1935: Italian forces under General Emilio De Bono invaded Abyssinia during the opening stages of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bono%27s_invasion_of_Abyssinia> 1942: World War II: The first successful test of the German V-2 rocket, the world's first ballistic missile and first human artifact to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight, occurred after two previous failed tests were recovered by the Allies. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket> 1981: The Hunger Strike by Irish Republican Army prisoners at the Maze jail in Belfast ended after seven months and 10 deaths . <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike> 1990: The German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany officially joined to form the first fully sovereign united German state since the end of World War II when France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union occupied the country after the defeat of the Nazis. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: curfew (n): 1. (historical) A regulation in feudal Europe by which fires had to be covered up or put out at a certain fixed time in the evening. 2. The evening bell, which continued to be rung in many towns after the regulation itself became obsolete. 3. Any regulation requiring people to be off the streets and in their homes by a certain time. 4. The time when such restriction begins <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/curfew> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. --Gore Vidal <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
