Classifiers, number

[Johanna Nichols]

It just may be that the frequent association between numeral classifiers
and lack of number marking on nouns is an accident of geography.  Languages
all around the Pacific Rim are likely to minimize, restrict, neutralize,
treat as optional, or lack number distinctions especially in nouns.
Numeral classifiers are almost entirely limited to the Pacific Rim.

(For classifiers and the Pacific Rim see Nichols & Peterson, 'The Amerind
personal pronouns', Lg. 72.336ff., 1996; Map 13 there shows numeral
classifiers in a 173-language sample.  The distribution of number
categories is my own observation.)

There may well be some grammatical or semantic principle that explains why
the two properties are endemic in the same population, but that kind of
statement would be much less tight than an implicational hierarchy applying
to individual languages.

Johanna Nichols

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Johanna Nichols
Professor
Department of Slavic Languages
Mailcode 2979
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

Phone:	(1) (510) 642-1097 (direct)
	(1) (510) 642-2979 (messages)
Fax:	(1) (510) 642-6220 (departmental)
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