Classifiers and some typological considerations

Abstract : Classifiers, both nominal and verbal, must be taken into consideration as a parameter in typological studies of the numeral classifier languages. Building on previous work, we have shown that nominal and verbal classifiers are mutually dependent both chronologically and in terms of their syntactic position. Cross-linguistic data in general, and Chinese in particular, illustrate this dependency: nominal classifiers develop before verbal classifiers and the word order of the two kinds of classifiers is in a complementary distribution, occurring before nouns and after verbs.