Computational Grammars: Classifiers

Describe the use of classifiers in your language

We will not model directly lexical semantic constraints, although we will discuss them.

You should describe at least the following

• What can combine with the classifier X
• What kinds of classifiers are there C
• What constructions do they appear in C

Japanese

Classifier complements

• Combine with numerals: 1, 2, ...; 一, 二, 三, ...
• Combine with the interrogative: 何 nan "what"
• Combine with the quantifier: 数 suu "several"
• Combine with the quantifier: 毎 mai "every"

Classifier Types

• Sortal: 匹 hiki "animal" (some pronunciation changes)
• Default: つ tsu "thing" (個　 ko for numbers above 10)
• Mensural: 尺 shaku "inch (roughly)"
• Event: 回 kai "time" (also　hen, shuu "circuit")
• Kind:　類 shuu "kind"
• Arrangement:　山 yama "pile"
• Portion:　切れ slice "slice"
• Time/Date?

Construction Types

• Genitive: X C の N -P
  二 匹 の 犬 が　吠える
• Posthead: N X C -P
  犬 二 匹 が 吠える
• Floating: N -P [...] X C
  犬 が 毎 日 二 匹 吠える
• Anaphoric: X C 　　
  二 匹 が 吠える
• Complement (only mensural?): 　
  その 小包 は 重さ が １ ポンド を 越える 。
  その 人 は 体重 が １２０ ポンド ある 。
  300 メートル　したら　右 に　あります 。
  この 仕事 は 、 5 人 かかる 。

Course materials borrow heavily from Linguistics 567: Knowledge Engineering for NLP at the University of Washington. Thanks to Emily Bender for letting us use them.