2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
A contrastive study of the (non-)use of classifiers and plurals in classifier languages
| Project/Area Number |
23720199
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
|
| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
|---|
| Research Field |
Linguistics
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Tokyo University of Foreign Studies |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
NOMOTO Hiroki 東京外国語大学, 大学院総合国際学研究院, 講師 (10589245)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2011 – 2013
|
| Keywords | 言語学 / 統語論 / 意味論 / 類別詞 / 数 / マレー語 / 日本語 / 名詞 |
|---|
| Research Abstract |
This study investigated the following two questions regarding languages with classifiers, i.e. words such as ko and tsu in Japanese. First, while the classifier ko in ik-ko no ringo in Japanese is obligatory, the classifier is not obligatory in its Malay equivalent. Why is there such a grammatical difference between the two language types? Second, in languages with classifiers, bare noun forms (e.g. gakusei) can refer to either singular or plural entities. At the same time, they also have noun forms that specifically express plural reference such as gakusei-tachi. How are these two forms distinguished, and what mechanism is involved to make the co-existence of the two distinct noun forms possible?
|
