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From: W.Taylor@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor)
Subject: CHINESE... just what IS a classifier?
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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 17:58:21 GMT
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This topic - classifiers in Chinese - pops up here in sporadic
but frequent appearances.  They seem to be very important in
Mandarin and related regiolects, and also Japanese and some other
oriental languages.

But no-one has ever yet said just what the **** they ARE!

Many examples have been given, usually with English translations,
but the classifier word never gets translated, and doesn't ultimately
seem to have any meaning. But nor does it seem to have any grammatical
purpose.  None that I could detect, anyway.  The examples given don't
really indicate what it's for.

So please, could Lee Dau San, Miguel or someone else, please tell us
at sufficient length, what and why is a classifier, exactly?

Many thanks.

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         Bill Taylor          W.Taylor@math.canterbury.ac.nz
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         We should all feed off the great woks of literature.
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