<html><head></head><body><div class="ydp7543b32byahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><div id="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045"><div><div class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp4064ff4yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div></div>
<div><span style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">The following is a short summary of an argument I am going to present in a conference on Language Typology, in July. </span></i></span><i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">As I have read, the numeral
classifiers are common among languages in Asia as well as some other
areas of the world. Indo-European languages are not evaluated as rich in such
pattern. My knowledge can be limited, so I would appreciate any comments,
remarks about the matter. My main concern is how widespread this pattern is among IE languages, how (if any) these compare to other languages generally described as numeral classifier languages - and such relevant issues</span></i></div><div><div>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;"><b><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></i></b></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;"><b><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Albanian with regard to nominal classifiers</span></i></b></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Several
authors have analyzed the numeral classifiers (NC) in typological or case
studies (Greenberg 1977, Craig 1986, Dixon 1986, Croft 1994, Seifart 2010, etc.).
A large number of Asian languages (with an isolating typological profile), </span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">but
also some Caucasian, West African and American Indian languages,</span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"> have been evaluated and argued as nominal classifier
ones based on certain features (Greenberg 1977, Aikhenvald 2000, Nichols 1992,
Bisang 1996, 1999, Seifart 2010, etc.). However,
even Albanian, an IE language, is abundant with such constructions, with the
features as defined in the cited literature. Their use is not strictly
obligatory. Many enumerated nouns may also choose two or more alternative NCs.
The choice is basically semantic and they constitute an open lexical class.</span><br clear="none"></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">The
main function appears to have been unitizing for the purpose of quantification.
Then, because of the means employed, there has been a nominal classification
imposed on the enumerated nouns. There is a clear classification of human
versus nonhumans </span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Num + frymë (souls)</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"> – for people </span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Num + krerë/kokë (heads)</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"> – for animals mainly for domestic animals, but also
expanded to other animals (less common).</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">As
for inanimates, there is a wide range of NCs, generally having emerged from
usage, needs and utilitarian purposes. There is structuring based <i>on </i></span><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">how
speakers interact with objects</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">:</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">5 barrë dru/shkarpa/qymyr, etc. – 5
loads wood/kindling/coal</span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">2 krahë dru – 2 arms wood </span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Një dorë miell/kripë/para, etc – one
hand flour/salt/money </span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Një grusht miell, ujë, para, etc - a fist flour/water/money</span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">This use could be similar to the English: a handful
of.., an armful of…, a fistful of….</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Shape
and size are often the underlying cognitive factors to the emergence of some NCs
</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">3 kokrra mollë – 3 round-shaped
apples</span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">2 pëllëmbë mustaqe – 2 palms mustache
(measuring 2 palms in length)</span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Liquids
have their own NCs</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Një bardhak/kupë ujë/qumësht – one
bowl/cup of water/milk</span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Një kotruve ujë – one bucket water</span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Very
often liquids and hard matter like sand, flour, sugar etc. have the same NC,
their proper container vessels. For the same noun or set of nouns, there can be
more than one alternative, which can be a different container and generally
provides for different size or amount.</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">The
NCs impose numerability on mass nouns but also on countables too (<i>3 kokrra mollë/3 kokrra fiq/10 kokrra domate
etc</i>.). It is interesting to note that they convert even some abstract nouns
to numerability </span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">një vorbull ere (a swirl of wind); </span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">një tis avulli (a soft breeze/cover
of steam), </span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">një shkundje ere (a shake of wind)
etc.</span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">It
has been observed even in other languages that the NCs do not simply serve the
purpose of providing for unitizing and counting of the nouns. The numeral NPs
very often involve the numeral ‘one’. It can also be seen that in some cases
the opposition underlying the presence of the NC is that of <i>none</i> vs. <i>any</i>. </span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Metonymy
is a very common source: <i>breath/soul</i>
for people, <i>heads</i> for cattle and some
other animals, <i>roots</i> for trees, etc. The
most common mechanism is the metaphorical projection of certain schemas,
lexical items, which already ‘carry numerability’, onto new scenes and schemas.
>From idiosyncratic lexical items, they spread and may become more or less
generic. Hence, the NCs can be considered as ‘vessels’ of numerability.</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Most
of the usage underlying the NCs has almost faded away: either such vessels are
not used nowadays, or, such work is not carried out in the present. However,
the pattern remains strong and large. The historical emergence and use must
have provided for the deeply embedded cognitive patterns, which accounts for
the productive spread of the NCs. The presence of several alternatives for the
same elements supports this view too. The NCs are idiosyncratic lexemes, and
their lexical content imposes constraint on their use. However, the strength of
the pattern seems to have encouraged the spread beyond the expected line. This
accounts for their expansion to abstract nouns, attempting to unitize or
individualize elements like wind, sea water, or abstract ones like pleasure,
anger, work, time, etc. Some NCs have even provided for figurative collocations.</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Albanian
has a rich system of NCs, but very few collective classifiers (<i>a series of, a heap of, a pack of, etc.</i>)
– comparative to languages like English. While the NCs are highly constrained,
the collective classifiers apply to large sets. The few ones open to humans,
other animates as well as inanimates, (<i>një
grumbull …– a collection of …; një mori … - a series of …</i>) or, for animals
and inanimates (<i>tufë</i> – also used for
human, when implying brutes, primitives, uneducated), or for a wide range of
inanimates (<i>pirg – a heap of</i>). Even
the existing (low-level) constraint seems to be basically due to the
pre-emptive effect of the few constructions in use. </span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">The
typical NCs appear in a morpho-syntactic blend, a straight juxtaposition, just
like in the numeral constructions (Num + N). There are some NCs which can appear
in both, the straight blend with simple form juxtaposition or having the
enumerated noun in ablative (indefinite), which is actually a simple form, and
very common in many NPs. The NCs have two forms: singular for numeral ‘one’ and
plural for ‘two’ or higher. Both forms are indefinite.</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">The
numeral constructions can also develop into a full inflected NP, in which case
it is not a numeral classifier NP:</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Një/dy barrë dru – one/two load woods</span></i></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Barra e druve – the load of woods</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"></span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Hence,
Albanian appears as a numeral classifier language, and this requires an
explanation considering inheritance (as an IE language) as well as the areal
environment. In addition, Greenberg argues that the numeral classifier system
developed in languages with a prior mass/unit nouns distinction. Albanian obviously
does not qualify as such. </span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">The
strength of the pattern in Albanian can be regarded as a deeply embedded
behavioral pattern, supported/supplied /provided for by the large number of
available schemas, the wide usage and the already functional needs. The large
number of the NC constructions represent </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">a particular combination
of semantic structure and information packaging. </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">This
evidence may contribute </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">to what can be
learned from classifier systems with regard to the nature of language
organization.</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"></span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><b><i><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:107%;">References</span></i></b></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Aikhenvald,
Alexandra Y. 2000. Classifiers. A typology of noun categorization devices.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Bisang,
Walter. 1996. Areal typology and grammaticalization: processes of grammaticalization
based on nouns and verbs in East and Mainland South East Asian languages.
Studies in Language 20. 519–97.</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Bisang,
Walter . 1999. Classifiers in East and Southeast Asian languages. Counting and
beyond. Numeral types and changes worldwide, ed. by Jadranka Gvozdanovı´c,
113–85. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, Trends in</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fDefault" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 118.</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;color:rgb(34, 34, 34);"></span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Croft,
William. 1990. <i>Typology and universals</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;color:rgb(34, 34, 34);">Croft, William (1994) Semantic universals in
classifier systems, Word, 45:2,145-171,</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Croft,
William. 2014. Grammatical categories, semantic classes and information
packaging. Draft chapter of book project <i>Morphosyntax: Constructions of the
world’s languages. </i></span><a shape="rect" href="http://www.unm.edu/~wcroft/Papers/Morphosyntax-ch1-Jan14.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">http://www.unm.edu/~wcroft/Papers/Morphosyntax-ch1-Jan14.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">.</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fDefault" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;color:rgb(34, 34, 34);">Greenberg,
J. (1972) Numeral Classifiers and
Substantival Number: Problems in the Genesis of a Linguistic Type. Working
papers on Language universals, No. 9..1-40, </span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Haspelmath,
Martin. 2010a. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic
studies. <i>Language </i>86. 663–687.</span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;">Nichols,
Johanna. 1992. Linguistic diversity in space and time. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press. </span></p>
<p class="ydp7543b32byiv0384512045ydp1215608fMsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times New Roman, serif;color:rgb(34, 34, 34);">Seifart, F. (2010). Nominal
classification. <i>Language and linguistics compass</i>, <i>4</i>(8),
719-736.</span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="ydp1df2ce4dyiv0384512045yqt4351292727" id="ydp1df2ce4dyiv0384512045yqtfd10106"><br clear="none"></div></body></html>