A Comparative Study Of Categorization Of Chinese And English Measure Words

Categorization is a process in which human beings perceive the infinite by way of classification. It can be understood either in a broad sense or a narrow sense. In its broad sense, categorization is the macro cognitive activity which aims to understand the world by categorizing the infinite into the finite. In its narrow sense, it refers to the classification involved in specific contexts. Therefore, categorization in its narrow sense is the exemplification of that in the broad sense, and the latter embodies the nature of the former. Language is the carrier of thinking, as well as the medium of cognitive classification of human beings. However, the categorization of language itself is a kind of categorization in a narrow sense.Lexical categorization is an important part of linguistic categorization. As a special linguistic phenomenon in lexical categorization, measure words have been lexicalized into an independent group as other word classes in Chinese. However, it still calls for further investigation whether there are measure words in English. Combining comparative analysis with introspection and quantitative analysis, this study probes into the existence of English measure words, the English term which is equivalent to liangci, differences and similarities of Chinese and English measure words, as well as the relations between nouns and measure words. The findings of this study are as follows:First, there are English words which share the three defining features of Chinese measure words. Although they adopt a different quantifying construction and possess a relatively small number, it is reasonable to recognize these words as English measure words.Second, the essential characteristic of Chinese measure words is that they function as units in quantifying. It is proved that individual measure words not only convey salient characteristics of their corresponding nouns, but also serve as quantifying units. Based on this defining feature, this thesis argues that the English term"measure words"is an equivalent to Chinese liangci.Third, with Chinese measure words as a reference point, English measure words are also subcategorized into six groups. Then a comparative analysis is made between Chinese and English measure words by adopting quantitative analysis. For one thing, it redefines the measure words and counts their numbers in each subcategory from three Chinese measure words dictionaries—A Dictionary of Modern Chinese Measure Words Usage, A Dictionary of Chinese Measure Words and A Dictionary of Measure Words—which are influential and possess a large circulation. For another, it collects the English measure words and compares them with their Chinese counterparts. The result shows that the number of Chinese individual measure words is more prominent than the English ones and the proportion of collective measure words in English covers more than that of Chinese.Fourth, although the English measure words share the same defining features of Chinese measure words, it is unnecessary to categorize them as an independent word class due to the syntactically optional feature. However, this grammatical arrangement cannot deny the existence of measure words in the English language.Fifth, although there are measure words in the two languages, they are categorized into different word classes in that categorization is influenced by cultural factors. People from different cultural backgrounds may identify the same objects into different groups in the process of cognitive categorization.Sixth, since a majority of measure words are decategorized from nouns, there is no such a clear-cut boundary between nouns and measure words. Rather, it forms a continuum ranging from nouns through quasi-measure words to measure words.