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Part of
The Diachrony of Classification Systems
Edited by William B. McGregor and Søren Wichmann
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 342] 2018
► pp. 135–164

Numeral classifier systems in the Araxes-Iran linguistic area

This corpus-based study discusses numeral classifiers (NCs) in neighboring languages of disparate origins: Azerbaijani (Turkic) and within Indo-European both colloquial Armenian and Vafsi (NW Iranian). Colloquial Tehran Persian and some other smaller Iranian languages, an additional Armenian dialect, a peripheral dialect of Azerbaijani, two Neo-Aramaic dialects (Semitic), and colloquial Georgian (Kartvelian) are also marginally included. This study shows that languages of very different origins have developed typologically similar classifier systems with very parallel behaviors. Although NCs in these languages are robust in usage, they represent simple systems, generally consisting of only two members: (1) a universal NC meaning ‘seed, grain’ used for all noun types (including human), and (2) an NC meaning ‘person’ optionally used for humans. The statistics of frequency of each classifier in these languages are tabulated. The diachrony of NCs in the area, their relationship to Greenbergian typology, their areality, and their fade-out phenomena are also discussed.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Overview of numeral classifiers
    • 2.1Numeral classifiers: forms and meanings
      • 2.1.1The UNC for inanimate, human, and other animate head nouns
      • 2.1.2The human numeral classifier (HNC)
      • 2.1.3Numeral classifiers and the formal written vs. colloquial registers
  • 3.Behavior of numeral classifiers
    • 3.1Usages of numeral classifiers
    • 3.2Disallowed uses of numeral classifiers
    • 3.3The numeral ‘1’
      • 3.3.1‘1’ as an indefinite article
      • 3.3.2Different numeral classifiers for ‘1’ vs. ‘higher than 1’
      • 3.3.3Different frequencies for ‘1’ vs. ‘higher than 1’
    • 3.4Quantifiers and numeral classifiers
    • 3.5Obligatory use of numeral classifiers as heads of NPs
  • 4.Diachrony
  • 5.Greenbergian typology
  • 6.Areality and fade-out
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.342.06sti
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