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A classifier, in linguistics, is a word or morpheme used in some languages in certain contexts to indicate the word class of a noun. Such noun classes are usually defined in part by semantic features (such as shape, animacy, etc.).
A classifier system is not the same as a grammatical gender system.
- Classifier systems typically involve 20 or more classifiers (separate lexemes that co-occur with the noun), while gender systems vary from two to twenty classes at most.
- Not every noun must take a classifier, and many nouns can occur with more than one classifier. (In a gender system, most nouns typically occur with one and only one gender.)
- The classifier occurs in only some syntactic environments. In addition, use of the classifier may be influenced by the pragmatics of style and the choice of written or spoken mode. (Often, the more formal the style, the richer the variety of classifiers used, and the higher the frequency of their use.)
- Noun classifiers are always free lexical items that occur in the same noun phrase as the noun they qualify. They never form a morphological unit with the noun, and there is never agreement marking on the verb.
- Noun classifiers are usually derived from words used as names of concrete, discrete, moveable objects.
Examples of languages with noun classifiers are Japanese, Chinese, Southeast Asian languages, Austronesian languages, and Mayan languages.
Usage
Classifiers are most often used when counting. Their use is thus analogous to English words that represent units or portions of mass nouns, for example one drop of milk, fifty head of cattle, three pieces of cake. This particular type of classifier is called a measure word, as well as a counter or counting word.
It must be noted that not all classifiers are strictly measure words. In Chinese, for example, classifiers are also used with determiners such as "this", "that", etc.
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