[Lexicog] Measure words

[Greg Aumann]

When I was in the early stages of formal Chinese study I was very
frustrated by measure words and the lack of good information about them,
especially how difficult it was to find out for any given noun which
classifier to use with it.

Pretty much all the books about measure words had articles about the
measure words which listed some of the nouns that you could use with
that measure word. But they only listed a few. Usually the one you were
looking for wasn't in any of the articles.

Eventually I found the following dictionary which let me look up a noun
and find all the measure words you could use with it.

1989 and 1997. 《现代汉语名词量词搭配词典》 [A Dictionary of Collocations
of Nouns and Measure Words in Modern Chinese] 浙江教育出版社。 ISBN
7-5338-0639-5/G.635

This dictionary contains about 400 different measure words.

Kenneth is right that classifier is the more usual term in linguistics
for measure words.

If you want a cross language perspective you should look at
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2000. Classifiers: A Typology of Noun
Categorization Devices. Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic
Theory. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926466-X

Also in Chinese measure words includes verbal measure words so don't
forget those.

Greg

Kenneth Keyes wrote:
>
> Tommaso, I don't have experience compiling Chinese dictionaries, though
> I did study Chinese in China, and use Chinese dictionaries quite
> frequently.   I think another linguistic term for measure word is
> "classifier."  You might try looking in bibliographies under that term.
> Wishing you success!
> Ken
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     *From:* lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
>     [mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Tommaso Pellin
>     *Sent:* Thursday, May 12, 2005 3:23 AM
>     *To:* lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
>     *Subject:* [Lexicog] Measure words
>
>     Dear lexicographers,
>
>     is there anyone who has some experience in Chinese measure words or
>     in measure words in any other kind of language? Could you give me
>     some advice about preparing a dictionary of measure words? Could you
>     suggest some good dictionary to take as an example (I am going to
>     write a Chinese-Italian dictionary of measure words)?
>
>     Thank you
>
>     Tommaso Pellin
>
>
>         ----- Original Message -----
>         *From:* fieldworks_support at sil.org
>         <mailto:fieldworks_support at sil.org>
>         *To:* lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
>         <mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com>
>         *Sent:* Wednesday, May 11, 2005 5:54 PM
>         *Subject:* Re: [Lexicog] "double vowel" & toolbox
>
>
>         You could try entering the double vowel combinations into the
>         sort order,
>         as a different character than the single vowels, but this may
>         not help. I
>         don't think there is any way if single vowels are valid characters,
>         to tell Toolbox never to interpret two vowels together as two single
>         vowels rather than one double vowel.
>
>         Although I would think if all the morphemes were in the lexicon,
>         this
>         wouldn't be such a problem. Since Toolbox should prefer parses
>         with fewer
>         morphemes, this would favor matches with double vowel morphemes
>         rather than
>         splitting the double vowel in two.
>
>
>         Steve White, Jaars language software support
>         704-843-6337, 1-800-215-7813
>
>
>
>         --
>         No virus found in this incoming message.
>         Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>         Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.11.8 - Release Date:
>         5/10/2005
>
>
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