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<DIV><FONT color=#008000>Hi, David, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000>I quickly discovered when I first came to Canada
that</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000>if the question was 'How much is it,' the answer
could be 'Dollar twenty five.' </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000>'One' (or 'a') needn't to be said. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000>I wonder if they do this in other English speaking
countries. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000>Best, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000>Hua Lin</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000>Department of Linguistics<BR>University of
Victoria<BR>P.O. Box 3045<BR>Victoria, BC<BR>Canada V8W 3P4</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000>Phone: 250-721-6643 (office)<BR>Fax: 250-721-7423
(office; shared)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #008000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=gil@eva.mpg.de href="mailto:gil@eva.mpg.de">David Gil</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
href="mailto:LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG">LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, October 14, 2001 12:11
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> classifier query</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT><BR></DIV>Dear all,<BR><BR>Is anybody familiar
with an example of diachronic change in which a<BR>numeral classifier becomes
reanalyzed as the numeral "one"?<BR><BR>Comment:<BR><BR>One could imagine two
plausible scenarios for such a reanalysis to take place.<BR><BR>(a) In some
numeral classifier languages, such as Cantonese and<BR>Vietnamese, a
classifier may occur with a noun but without a numeral;<BR>in such cases, the
resulting construction is generally interpreted as<BR>singular. The
singular semantics of such constructions could plausibly<BR>lead to the
classifier being reinterpreted as the numeral "one".<BR><BR>(b) In some
numeral classifier languages, a collocation of numeral plus<BR>classifier has
become reinterpreted as involving a simple numeral, the<BR>erstwhile
classifier having been bleached of its classificatory<BR>function. For
example, the Malay numeral _satu_ "one" derives from<BR><A
href="mailto:_*@sa">_*@sa</A>_ "one" plus _*batu_ "stone", the latter form
functioning as a<BR>classifier. One could thus imagine such a
development being followed by<BR>the phonological weakening and eventual
disappearance of the numeral<BR>"one", resulting in what was once a classifier
becoming interpreted as a<BR>numeral "one".<BR><BR>So I wonder: has this ever
happened? (Reason I'm asking is that I have<BR>a potential example of
this, but I'd like to get a feel for whether this<BR>is an otherwise attested
path of grammaticalization.)<BR><BR>Looking forward to your
reactions,<BR><BR>David<BR>--<BR>David Gil<BR><BR>Department of
Linguistics<BR>Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology<BR>Inselstrasse 22, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany<BR><BR>Telephone:
49-341-9952321<BR>Fax: 49-341-9952119<BR>Email: <A
href="mailto:gil@eva.mpg.de">gil@eva.mpg.de</A><BR>Webpage: <A
href="http://monolith.eva.mpg.de/~gil/">http://monolith.eva.mpg.de/~gil/</A><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>